The Picture Perfect Heist
by Spikey44
Summary: You need someone to be your conscience, she said, you were obviously born without one. He raised one eyebrow. Do you mind? I'm trying to commit a crime here. With that exchange Penelo knew it was all happening again. Another picture perfect seduction. P
1. Chapter 1

**The Picture Perfect Heist**

_Disclaimer: All known and recognisable characters, places, and names property of Square Enix. I am just playing with them for a little while. _

_A/N: This is a continuation of my little story, 'The Picture Perfect Theft' put up partly due to the immensely positive response to that story and partly because I enjoy writing this pairing so much. If you have not read the first story, don't worry it's not essential, and if you have then welcome back. _

* * *

_One foot before the other and then again the same; sometimes I wonder who I am these days. I think that had I known then what I know now I would ne'er have put one foot before the other. _

Penelo did not like Balfonheim.

She did not like the fish smell and the steely gazes of the dockhands and seamen that watched her with the look of hungry Lobo's in their eyes. In the four years since she had last spent more than a few hours in the Port she had grown but it had not.

The lecherous eyes of the denizens of this foul-smelling and lascivious place tried to drag her back through time to once more be the timid, uncertain girl of seventeen she used to be.

At twenty-one and a woman now, Penelo refused to give into the ripple of nervousness that threatened to hunch her shoulders inward and instead walked with head high and eyes straight ahead, never did her eyes seek refuge on the filthy ground.

The last three years since the Lemures trouble had been good to her, better than the girl from Low Town could ever have imagined, and she now walked with her blonde hair bound up atop of her head under delicate silver netting with a neat dark crimson hat of felt perched at rakish angle atop. She wore a long, body-clinging skirt of scarlet silk in the Archadian fashion and cut a vibrant swathe through the grey, forlorn drabness of the port.

There was very little left of that young, innocent, and afraid girl she had been, in the beautifully coiffed young woman who made her way, without hesitation, towards the Manse at the end of Saccio Lane.

Penelo had mixed feelings about approaching the pile of brick and masonry that sat atop the edge of the cliff with a certain down at heel dignity and refinement, faced on three sides by the roiling gun metal grey Naldoa Ocean.

Memories of four years ago; Reddas, Ashe, Basch and the others, filled her head with a potent mix of nostalgia and wistfulness. Penelo was realistic enough to recognise that only a fool would want to be back in that period of uncertainty and fear, but at the same time, she was old enough and knowledgeable enough now to look back on her 'youth' with a certain soft longing.

Of course thinking about ghosts and memories was much easier than facing what she had to do in the present. Or more accurately, _who_ she had to deal with in the present.

Looking up at the cracked white stucco walls of the Manse, the wide windows with curtains drawn and the faint sound of piano music seeping from a upstairs window left ajar, Penelo was finally transported back to that nervous girl with sweaty palms that she had been all those years ago.

It had been a year and a half since she had spoken to, or laid eyes on, Balthier.

So much had happened since then, she and Vaan had agreed to go their separate ways (though in fact rarely a month went by that she and Vaan did not see each other – and she wrote to him almost weekly) and in that time, accepting the gracious invitation of Lord Larsa himself, Penelo had settled in Archades.

For a whole year Penelo had lived in Nilbasse, in a small but comfortable apartment in the theatre district, and almost every night she had danced, or performed speaking roles, in any number of dramatic productions (she was often the main attraction – the 'Galbana heroine' the billboards called her).

Penelo, the once shy shop-girl and orphan of Rabanastre, had inspired in the very heart of the Empire that had robbed her of her family, rapturous applause, standing ovations and torrents of flowers strewn across almost every stage in Archades from Nilbasse to Tsenoble to the Imperial Palace itself. Poets wrote sonnets inspired by her blue eyes and tender smile, but Penelo, who remained gracious and generous with those who took the time to be interested in such as she, nevertheless remained a little apart from it all.

Precisely seven of the greatest and richest men in Archades, including two senators and four judges, had offered her ridiculous amounts of Gil, or tokens of other sort, if she would only condescend to be their lover and mistress.

Penelo had been scandalised, astonished, and finally merely bemused by all this and eventually had decided that she did not like having over-wrought Archadian gentry serenading her from the streets in front of all the ardents and street-ears; it had come high time for her to leave.

Over-wrought Archadians………..it was funny how no matter how things changed there were always reminders of what had passed.

Girding her metaphorical loins Penelo started up the broken paved path to the front doors of the manse. She pulled the velvet tasselled bell pull at the door to alert any inside to her presence and waited.

For the longest moment she thought that no one would answer; though the faint sound of music from the upstairs window suggested that someone at least lurked within. It would not have surprised her in the least if the current master of the manse was simply ignoring her.

Therefore it was almost more surprising when the door opened than it would have been had it not. In an eye blink Penelo found herself face to face with Elza (who to her consternation looked like she had just dragged herself out of bed – dressed as she was in nothing more than an almost sheer bed sheet).

'Who're yer an' what's yer business 'ere?'

The woman demanded not seeming too concerned that the sheet was drooping around her ample bosom. Penelo found herself not certain where to look, as a treacherous little voice in her head wondered what a nearly naked Elza was doing opening the door for Balthier in the first place.

'Elza, it's me, Penelo. Can I come in?'

Elza, who was a beautiful woman in the way that the Bandercouerls out on the Steppes were beautiful, a force of nature instead of a studied, practiced beauty, blinked bloodshot eyes at her in surprise.

'Bugger me, ain't yer lookin' all fancified.' Elza stuck her head out of the doorway and peered about suspiciously, ''Ere, where's Vaan?'

Penelo had to remind herself that some people did not know that she was no longer Vaan's sky pirate partner (except on such times when Vaan managed to successfully beg her to help in one adventure or another). 'He's in Rozzaria, I think.'

Elza turned her bleary, but shrewd eyes on Penelo once more and a slight smirk curled her full mouth, ''S'pose you 'ought come in then.'

She stepped away from the doorway and Penelo, taking a moment to wonder if she really wanted to come in after all, slipped in through the threshold. 'Thank you.'

Once the door was closed and the noises of the port were muffled in stale silence Elza finally tugged up the blanket more securely around her voluptuous figure and cocked a hip. ''E said it would likely be yer that ol' 'igh an' mighty Larsa Solidor sent a callin'.'

Penelo, who had been looking about her at the ground floor foyer of the manse, which looked remarkably like it had in Reddas' day, except for a lingering odour of cigar smoke and wine, turned back to Elza sharply.

'I came because I'm a friend to both Lord Larsa and Balthier. I'm not taking sides, and all I'm here to do is hear Balthier's side of the story and then tell Larsa only what Balthier says and nothing more.'

Elza just shrugged, unconcerned. 'E's already near come t'blows wit' Judge Magister Gabranth, 'im that look awful like that other chap you palled around wit'. An' 'e's 'ad missives from that little missy Queen of Dalmasca too.' The smirk grew, 'It din't move 'im none.'

Penelo knew that Balthier had already managed to infuriate all his former allies, to the point where Vaan had told her that most people thought Balthier had lost his mind. This knowledge did nothing to make her task any easier as Elza rather mockingly curtseyed to her using the blanket and gestured with one hand to the wide staircase.

'Yer'll find 'im in t'master bedroom.' Again Elza smirked, ''E's in a right mardy mood, though, los' a small fortune at t'cards las' night.' Elza laughed purring contemptuously, 'cause t'weren't 'is Gil, so it ain't t'at bad.'

Penelo, who understood the implication in Elza's words decided not to comment. Smiling tightly to Elza and steeling herself for whatever she might find after a year and half with no contact at all, she took the stairs slowly to the second floor.

* * *

_If all things have their place in time, where is mine?_

Passing the corridor where her old room had been, Penelo almost tried the door to see what had become of that old easel and the outlined sketch for a painting never completed; she felt almost certain that it would still be there and that the room would be exactly as she had left it.

It was for that reason that she passed the door without so much as brushing the brass door handle with her fingers. The door at the end of the corridor, the master bedroom, loomed up before her like the inevitable spectre of death and Penelo firmly put her panicky musings in order.

No matter what, when push came to shove, Balthier was just a man, no better and no worse than any other.

Coming to an abrupt stop in front of the walnut wood door at the end of the pale cream and burnished gold filigree wall-papered corridor, Penelo dearly wished she could believe that. Alas the truth was so much more complicated than that.

Without knocking (because she didn't want to give him the opportunity of diving out of a window to avoid her) she turned the door handle and entered the room.

'Oh!'

Her cheeks flamed and once again it was an ignorant, innocent, unaware seventeen year old standing in the adult Penelo's fine Archadian heels and silks.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, a narrow band of burgundy twisted bed sheet the only thing protecting his modesty, sat a sleep dishevelled man with broad shoulders and a whippet lean waist. The man had one elbow resting on the bed side table whereon sat a small bowl of water next to a shaving brush and shaving soap tub, and in his hand he held a mother-of-pearl inlaid razor with nonchalant absence of purpose.

'Do you mind; I believe it is still customary manners for a woman to _knock_ before entering a gentleman's bedroom, hmm?'

Sardonic (slightly reddened) heavy-lidded dark eyes regarded her coolly and without any discernable warmth and it really was, once again, as though time stood on its head and the sand in the hour glass ran backwards.

Penelo, hands curling into fists in her embarrassment, found herself choking down something akin to vehement hatred for the man before her even as her stomach flip-flopped like a landed fish at the sight of him.

Nearly two years and not a thing had changed; he could still reduce her to nothing more than a helpless tongue-tied little girl in the space of seconds.

Rallying as best as she could Penelo stared boldly back into those bedroom eyes filled with cynical amusement and secrets she had no wish to know, 'Hello Balthier; I think you know why I'm here?'

To her consternation a slow, snake-like smile curved over his generous closed-lipped mouth.

'Do you now?' he purred and then turned away, still smiling obscurely to himself, and opened the twist lid on his container of shaving soap. Dipping the bristles of his shaving brush into the bowl of water he then used the brush to rub the soap into lather.

Penelo, standing in the doorway, felt exceedingly foolish standing there, clenched fisted, watching him shave. The only thing that kept her from turning tail and leaving was the knowledge that that was exactly what he wanted her to do.

'Lord Larsa Solidor has asked me to come and speak with you, as we know each other, and I'm not an employee of the Empire. He hopes to end this,' she recalled Larsa's exact phraseology, 'this _unfortunate misunderstanding _before things get any more out of hand.'

Balthier, lower half of his face covered in a thick, creamy white lather, should have looked ridiculous as he turned to her with one ironically raised eyebrow, that he managed not to, was a source of some irritation to Penelo.

'Oh, is that so?' he murmured deep voice pleasant and almost musical as he welded the razor in smooth strokes under his upraised chin.

'Yes, it is so.' Penelo gritted out between her teeth. She was trapped between wanting to slit the arrogant pirate's throat with the blade or take the razor and start shaving him herself.

Eighteen months and nothing had changed. She was still in love with him and he still didn't give a damn one way or the other.

Balthier had withdrawn a hand mirror from somewhere on the table top and was now studying it intently as he worked on shaving his cheeks without ruining the line of his sideburn.

'Well, how nice for you both.' he murmured, 'Little Lord Larsa gains an unpaid envoy and our little actress dips her toe into politics. I am almost saddened that you have made a wasted journey.'

'What do you mean?' Penelo asked through her teeth. She knew that he was setting her up for some elaborate put-down, or grand joke at her and Larsa's expense, but as she had promised both Larsa and Ashe, she had no choice but to play along.

Balthier smiled, 'You said your mission was to address an 'unfortunate misunderstanding'? Well I am not aware that such a misunderstanding exists between myself and Archadia's diminutive Emperor, thus I cannot imagine our discussion will be very fruitful.'

He had finished one side of his face and now turned from her to do his other cheek. Penelo noticed, now she was free to look at him without being skewered by those dark, dark, eyes of his, that he was now sporting a new scar. A jagged sword stroke ran parallel from his sternum to his right hip.

The scar was fresh, angry, and red, and Penelo could not drag her gaze away from it; it was evidence of just how far things had gone towards enmity between Balthier and just about everyone who had once called him friend. That wound was Basch – or rather Judge Magister Gabranth's - handiwork.

'Balthier you hi-jacked an Imperial air-galleon; you stole one million Gil of Archadian currency and the damage you did to the ship caused it to crash land in the middle of the Westersand. How could you do that?'

Balthier had finished his shave and was dabbing at his face with a hand towel that had been folded over the table top alongside the porcelain bowl of water.

'Quite easily, actually; the galleon's security measures were appalling lax and the vessel was barely flight worthy; I'm amazed the damn thing stayed in the air at all. It was barely worth blowing out the aft engines while taking my leave of the thing.'

Penelo wanted to turn away as he flashed her a quick smile, the briefest flash of white teeth in a wolfish and entirely unrepentant grin, designed to outrage her. He could play her like a fiddle and always had, and she hated that she still, almost unconsciously, responded to him.

'I just want to know why you did it; why you've sided with the sky pirates against Dalmasca, Rozzaria, and Archadia. Why you've thrown in your lot with people you despise against people who you've fought beside; against your _friends_.'

The smile, or any trace of amusement was gone from his face as if it had never been, his dark eyes bored into her from deep inside his head.

'I have no friends.'

Penelo shook her head, hard enough that a twisted gold ringlet of her hair came free of the hairnet, 'That's rubbish and you know it. It's not even an excuse.'

Balthier contrived to smirk again and, fastening the wine red sheets about his hips, he stood up with a lazy stretch. 'You seem very certain of what I know, what I don't know, and what my motivations are, all of a sudden.'

He told her mildly as, the ends of the bed sheet trailing around his legs and his hair ruffled and standing up in peaks and tufts like the downy fluff of Chocobo chicks, Balthier walked directly towards her.

'Perhaps you should have saved yourself this journey and simply told Lord Larsa what I think, feel, and intend to do, based upon your obviously superior intuitive senses, hmm?'

In less time than it took to tell Penelo was pressed against the wall and Balthier was casually encroaching upon her personal space, looking disarmingly, almost charmingly, bedraggled in his just woken up splendour.

'Before this little reunion devolves into acrimoniousness, as I've no doubt it will, I suppose I should take the time to commend you on your recent theatrical successes. I saw you in the Starsailor's Daughter; you have a talent well worth the extortionate door charge, my dear.'

Penelo blinked, for a moment too startled by his admission to recognise his old habit of abruptly changing subjects in order to throw off his opponent's equilibrium.

'The Starsailor's Daughter? That was my last show; you must have been in Archades only months ago.'

Balthier braced one forearm on either side of the wall by her head and the sudden intimacy between them brought back bittersweet memories of that short time almost three years ago when she had cheerfully given him her virginity and he had, for a short time, indulged her young girl's crush until, with the inevitability of the changing seasons, he had grown bored with her.

Balthier sighed, and for a moment she wondered if he was as tired of these word games and misdirection's as she was.

'Yes, I know. It's ironic, isn't it? I am the most wanted man in Archadia, if not all Ivalice now. The pirate who spurned the friendship of the Empire for the paltry price of one million Gil, and yet I can attend music hall performances in the Capital without anyone noticing; it is quite pitiful really.'

Penelo knew that her duty to Larsa demanded she pick up and chase down that slight thread of regret tingeing Balthier's words, but she found herself more interested in something else entirely.

'Why did you come to see my performance; I didn't think musical theatre would appeal to you.'

To her surprise Balthier flashed her that sudden, lightening bolt, grin once more as he pushed away from the wall and sidestepped towards the open doorway.

'Oh, who knows? Perhaps I was in the mood for a little light entertainment, or perhaps I was merely being provocative by baiting the Empire and my dear friend Magister Gabranth?'

He shrugged stopping in the threshold of the doorway and looking over his shoulder at her, 'Perhaps, my dear, I even missed you.'

Without waiting for Penelo to do more than blink in surprise at this off-hand almost question, he slipped away from her once more and into the hallway. His voice, lyrically mocking and laughing at her and the world with every syllable, floated back to her like a goodbye kiss.

'And you may tell Larsa, my dearest darling Penelo, that I have no interest in spending mealy mouthed words and platitudes with him and what's more, I am keeping every coin of his million Gil.'

Penelo, leaning against the wall, heart pounding and mouth dry after only a half-hour in his company once again, closed her eyes and counted backwards from ten.

Seething inside with a mixture of fury that Balthier could be so callous, so indifferent, in regards to both his crimes and his betrayals, but also almost singing with excitement, a tingling thrill she felt through the roots of her hair to the toes on her feet.

One and a half years absence and here she was again, heart in her throat and set aflame by one dark eyed Archadian's inexplicable, suavely insane, proximity.

Three years ago, aboard Vaan's airship, Penelo had wrongly ascribed herself the victor in a tug of war (and hearts) between herself and Balthier. She had learned from her mistakes that first time, and now, fate had given her a second chance.

She had stolen her way into his affections once, if only for a few short months, and now here she was again, armed with hindsight, and ready to attempt another theft, far more audacious than any the sky pirate would dare.

Larsa had given her one month to locate the stolen Million Gil; therefore Penelo had one month to bring Balthier to heel and secure his heart once and for all.


	2. Chapter 2

_Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, sooner or later all flesh is grass._

Penelo decided to wait for Balthier to finish washing, dressing, and grooming in the downstairs breakfast room.

Seated at the table with its pretty floral patterned table cloth and enjoying the rare sight of sunlight falling cleanly through the large ceiling to floor windows facing out across the ocean, she began to wonder if Balthier had absconded out of the upstairs window.

Initially she had thought to hound him with questions while he dressed in the bedroom but had decided against that. More than likely she would only succeed in making Balthier angry and an angry Balthier was harder to deal with then he ever was in ordinary circumstances; she most certainly did not need to make her life any harder by antagonising him.

'Are you still here?'

Penelo jumped as the man in question breezed into the breakfast room in habitual tight black trousers and luminous white shirt under a padded black velvet jacket with thick silver thread stitching the sleeves to the body of the jacket so that a line of white shirt could be seen at the seams. He was not wearing one of his usual tight fitted vests and the shirt was open at the neck to reveal a chain of burnished silver with a dark, bloody ruby hanging from it.

Telling herself firmly not to notice such things, she sought refuge in staring out of the window as he dropped bonelessly into his chair across the table from her.

'You don't get rid of me that easily.'

She finally forced herself to say, as, ignoring her with consummate skill, Balthier picked up a fork from the table and twiddled it between his fingers watching the wane sunlight glint off the tarnished silverware.

Penelo tried to plot out her next words and find a means of broaching the subject of the stolen one million Gil that would not end in stony silences or vicious jibes, when Balthier stole her thunder.

'Have you eaten?'

'What?' her thoughts derailed in utter confusion and all she could manage to do was blink stupidly at him.

Balthier sitting cross-legged with his arms folded over his chest, 'I asked if you had eaten. I am about to break my fast, would you care to join me?'

The invitation while worded politely was said with such complete lack of interest or enthusiasm that Penelo was glad she had eaten hours ago. 'It is gone noon.' she told him contemptuously.

Balthier was unabashed and continued to stare coolly back at her across the table, 'Then I have missed not just one meal of the day, but two. I repeat my question: would you care to dine with me?'

Penelo studied him carefully. The Balthier she knew was always up with the sunrise, if not before. She found it hard to believe that he would sleep in until past noon and allow more than half the day to escape his grasp.

'You've changed more than I thought.'

She murmured sadly wondering what had made him so dissolute that even Fran had despaired of him. The writing had been on the wall, Penelo supposed, the moment Fran contacted Vaan and (at least temporarily) joined his crew leaving Balthier to his own devices.

The sky pirate was still watching her keenly and she had the feeling that he could read what she was thinking as easily as any book. His lips curved in a slanted smile and then he uncrossed his legs and rose from the chair.

Coming to stop above her Balthier held out his hand, 'Come now, my dear, I have no interest in continuing our conversation on an empty stomach, and you'll be hard pressed to interrogate me if you are here and I am not.'

Penelo stared from that offered hand up into his calm eyes with open suspicion. After a moment she placed her hand into his. There was a large part of her that did not want to go anywhere with him, but at the same time he was right and she needed to keep him in sight to fulfil her promise to Larsa.

Both Larsa and Ashe would be satisfied that accounts were settled if the Gil was returned and they would not look to prosecute Balthier even though both were hurt that he had stolen from the one and caused an airship to crash within the boundaries of Dalmasca (thus making the whole mess partly Ashe's problem too).

It was Penelo's job to either, persuade Balthier to return the Gil, or find out where he'd hidden it and then let either Larsa or Ashe know. Therefore to fulfil that role she had to remain in Balthier's company in case he should let slip some clue or show any sign of repentance.

That was the _only_ reason Penelo let him tuck her hand in the crook of his elbow and escort her from the manse and out into the port.

Certainly she was not moved by the ticklish brush of velvet against the back of her hand or the feel of his arm under the curl of her palm through that velvet sleeve as he walked jauntily through the Gallerina Marketplace forcing her to lengthen her strides to keep pace with his much longer legs.

'Well I must say this is the most peaceful interrogation I have ever undergone.'

Once again his words startled her out of her thoughts and she looked up at him in surprise, 'What?'

'Tsk-tsk, you have become scattered brained, haven't you?' he smiled slyly, 'What would dear Lord Larsa say if he knew that you had become so distracted that you have plum forgotten the reason for your coming here in the first place?'

Penelo tried to pull her arm free of his, but he held tight and instead she forced herself to relax before replying levelly, 'I am not distracted. I just didn't think you would answer any of my questions honestly so decided to save my breath.'

He chuckled good-spiritedly, 'Ah, a nice recovery; your time in the Capital has not been wasted I see.'

He paused and cut a sideways glance her way speculatively, 'Though I am saddened to see a sharp tongue is not the only trait you have picked up in Archades. You have also taken to wearing sleeves. Personally I find this to be quite the pity; now I can no longer see those delectable tattoos of yours.'

Jolted Penelo looked down at her crisp white cotton blouse with the ruffles and the high collar.

'It is not as warm in Archades as it is in Rabanastre.' she pointed out defensively, though she was not sure what she had to defend, 'And anyway _you_ wear sleeves whatever the weather.'

Balthier had guided them to the doorway of a small, shabby, café opposite the Whitecap Tavern, situated on the same semi-circular courtyard with the panorama facing out across the ocean. With a flourish he pushed open the door and bowed for her to precede him through.

'Ah, but I have something to hide,' he demurred as he took her elbow with a casual wave to the plump, cheerful woman behind the counter of the small café and bakery that smelled deliciously of fresh baked cakes and icing sugar, 'You on the other hand should not hide your lights under crinoline and lace.'

To her increasing bafflement and suspicion Balthier drew out the chair for her at the small table near the back of the café and waited until she was seated before scooting her in at the table and taking his own seat across from her.

Penelo found herself fiercely wondering what his game was, as it was rare indeed for Balthier to be this chivalrous and courteous without wanting something in return. She said not a word to him as Balthier ordered a light breakfast of cold meats, cheese, fruit and bread and Penelo eventually settled on a cup of Hippocras and a jam tart.

'So tell me,' Balthier once again broke the uneasy silence between them and thus forced her gaze from her sticky pastry to him, 'is it true that you reduced Judge Magister Bellendoft to public torrents of sobbing when you refused his marriage proposal?'

Her fork, which she had been politely using to break apart her tart, crashed down against the chipped plate and the morsel of icing sugar dusted pastry fell into her lap smearing jam across her white blouse. Penelo barely noticed as she gaped at Balthier.

'How did you…?'

He smiled tight-lipped and watched, amused, as Penelo tried to pick pastry out of her skirts and dab at the smear of jam with a napkin, 'So it is true, then?'

Penelo looked up at him sharply, giving up any attempt to be lady-like or dignified now that she had already made a fool of herself. 'That's none of your business.'

Spearing a slice of ham, a chunk of soft cheese, and a black grape on the tines of his fork Balthier inclined his head in acknowledgement, 'I suppose it is not, still, you were wise to avoid entanglement with a Magister.'

Penelo glared at him, it was the only adequate response as she licked spilled jam from her fingertips and used her hands to eat her pastry (it was messy and undignified but so much easier than using cutlery). For a while they once again lapsed into silence, Penelo still trying to work out how to broach the subject of the stolen Gil while Balthier appeared to be in fairly good spirits.

'You are quite famous, you know.'

He told her in conversational tones as if they had not spent the last five minutes in stony silence, 'Archades loves a novelty and there are very few things more novel than a two times Ivalice saving heroine treading the boards of Nilbasse to the tune of some of the most popular show songs.'

Penelo hesitated one finger raised to her lips and covered in the stray icing sugar from her plate, 'I thought they'd hate me; I mean I'm Dalmascan and Dalmasca defeated the Empire,' she shrugged awkwardly, 'I helped kill Vayne Solidor, but they acted like it was all a fun joke, and really, apart from Magister Bellendoft, the people were very nice to me.'

Balthier had almost finished his breakfast and, after pushing a green grape across his plate for a moment, he put his cutlery down.

'You should not underestimate your ability to charm all you meet, sweetheart, but even so, you should know by now never to expect an Archadian to be sensible.' he quirked a pointed eyebrow.

Penelo could not help but be warmed both by the endearment he used and by the dry joke at his own expense and she felt her mouth curl up in a smile. He was not patronising or mocking her and Penelo's spirits rose to realise he was talking to her as though he believed her to be a rational, sensible, equal once more. It had been a long time since he had done that.

A voice in her head told her to press the advantage and question him about the Gil, but she did not wish too. For Penelo, at least, there were more important matters at stake then Gil.

'I know. I went travelling to the north of the Empire with a theatre troupe and the people there were so different; they reminded me of normal people,' his eyes flashed with amusement and she realised what she'd said and blushed, 'I mean, like people in Rabanastre or Bhujerba. People in Archades aren't really like anyone else anywhere in Ivalice.'

'Hmm, and let us be thankful for that,' he murmured meditatively scraping his chair back and rising to his feet, depositing some Gil and a hefty tip on the table as Penelo got to her feet as well.

'Time to go, I think, the day is marching on.' Once more he offered her his arm and it seemed perfectly natural to take it.

* * *

_Worlds apart and side by side we are all strangers to those we love. _

In short order Penelo found herself with her hand tucked back in the crook of Balthier's elbow once more. Struggling to work out how to deal with solicitous, sweet-natured and ingratiating Balthier, when she had been steeling herself to combat snide, cynical, and uncompromising Balthier, he threw her further out of her depth with his next words.

'It is a nice day let us go down to the beach. It is quieter there.'

Utterly lost Penelo had little choice but to let him guide her down the stone steps towards the gritty sand and pebble strewn stretch of beach that rested underneath the wall of the panorama courtyard and therefore _literally_ underneath the notice of the vast majority of Balfonheim.

Gulls and seabirds, that she knew not the names of, wheeled and screamed to one another through the air, scudding over the choppy waters, as Balthier led them over to the backbone of low, greyish black stones that speared out into the surf.

'I heard a rumour that our Queen is to marry the Rozzarian fop.'

Balthier murmured as he seated himself on one of the rocks and curled one knee against his chest, resting his chin on that knee and looking musingly out across the sea.

'If you mean Al-Cid, then yes, I had heard that too.' Penelo settled herself demurely on the gritty sand next before the rock and tried not to feel like a supplicant as she looked up at him.

'Hmm, pity. She could do so much better.' He said still not looking at her, 'but then I suppose the discerning Dalmascan woman must look outside her own kind for a man of substance.'

He finally deigned to look at her dark eyes sparking with a secret joke, 'Your own men folk are somewhat lacking, or so I have observed, and heard from various sources.'

Penelo refused to rise to the bait and that same quality of strained and difficult silence threatened to separate them once again, although neither she nor he made a move to part.

Finally Penelo could not take a moment more, she drew in a breath. 'Balthier; what is going on?'

He turned from the distant horizon, the sun flickering on the rippling surf and the clouds moving swiftly across a thin blue sky, to look at her. Penelo, catching the stiff breeze that came up off the shore, shivered in her sleeves.

'Would you believe me if I told you?' he asked her sounding playful as he slipped out of his velvet jacket and handed it to her, 'You are shivering like a leaf; shirt sleeves alone won't protect you from the elements.'

She hesitated only a moment before putting on the jacket, which smelled of velvet and that odd almost edible scent of him. The sleeves were too long but almost immediately she felt warmer.

'I'm about the only person left who might believe a word you say Balthier.' She pointed out a little sharply and was not impressed when he laughed.

'Too true,' he hopped off the rock and crouched down before, 'you always were a rather trusting and gullible girl.'

She refused to let herself be insulted by that as she stared into his face from inches away and found her heartbeat picking up; what was he thinking, behind those heavy-lidded secretive eyes?

'Maybe,' she whispered so aware of how close his lips were to hers that her own were tingling, 'Maybe it's not gullibility, maybe I just have faith that you are a better person than you pretend to be.'

'Hmm, that would be profoundly foolish of you,' he murmured resting one hand on her shoulder to brace himself as he crouched before her. The stiff breeze, coming up off the ocean, rippled over his shirt with a sound like bird wings beating the air.

'Being optimistic isn't foolish,' she opined stubbornly turning her gaze away from him even though the heat from his hand was seeping through the thick velvet of his jacket and the thin cloth of her blouse to radiate through every inch of her skin.

'Or at least no more foolish than pretending that everything in life is cruel and jaded and broken, and using that to justify the nasty things you do.'

She added under the breath but knowing that he'd hear her; he was so close that he couldn't _fail_ to hear her.

She could actually hear his slight smile in his words even as she refused to look at him, 'Touche.'

With a sigh he settled down on the sand beside her, stretching out his long legs and leaning his back against the rock.

'So, let me guess,' he began again in casual tones, 'You have been commissioned with the task of insinuating your way into my trust to ascertain the location of the stolen Gil, and then, in the traditions of the best wicked seductresses of popular fiction, you are to betray me to my enemies and steal the Gil away. Is that about right?'

Penelo broke her promise not to look into his laughing eyes as she turned sharply back to him.

'You don't have enemies Balthier, only friends you have hurt with your actions; friends who would still forgive you if you'd just return what you took.'

Balthier smirked and flapped a hand to dismiss her words, 'I notice that you don't deny that you are here to steal back the Gil?'

Penelo huffed and tried to think up a suitably cutting rebuff to that, failing miserably, she turned away from him with what she hoped was a properly disdainful sniff. Balthier chuckled richly, pleased with himself. Penelo wrapped her arms about herself, fingers digging into the velvet of his jacket.

'I can't believe that you are treating all this as a joke. Larsa could have sent soldiers into Balfonheim to find the Gil and arrest you. If it wasn't for the fact that he thinks of you as a friend, you'd be swinging from a gibbet by now.'

The sound of Balthier's bubbling laughter forced her back round to face him again, almost against her will.

He had thrown his head back and was laughing brightly, and without restraint. Penelo found her gaze captivated by the bobbing of his throat at the open neck of his shirt. She had never seen him laugh quite like this. When he finally subsided his eyes still danced with mirth.

'Oh, my dearest, you are so dazzlingly stupid on occasion. It is really quite touching.'

Penelo recoiled at the insult but Balthier moved with her, his hands snaking around to clasp her cheeks in his palms, as he leaned forward and kissed her full on the lips.

Penelo froze, trapped in instant paralysis by twin, paradoxical, impulses to either slap him away from her or melt into his arms. When neither instinct could gain the upper hand she merely remained passively unmoving in his arms. He released her a moment later, though her lack of response did not seem to have bothered him.

Balthier's lips brushed against her right ear as he whispered, silkily, 'Did it never once occur to you to ask what the Empire was doing transporting one million Gil across Dalmasca to Rozzaria in the first place, hmm?'

Penelo's thoughts, caught in a riptide of stimulus as Balthier brushed his cheek against hers in a strange caress, his lips shifting from her ear to her neck and chin nudging the high-frilled neck of her blouse down, sharpened upon that one off-hand question.

'I…..?'

He chuckled against her flesh as the fingers of his right hand flicked out to release the top bottom of her high collar and peel it back from her throat.

'Evidently not,' he breathed her in, hands slipping to her waist and pulling her around to face him and then into his lap. Penelo thought about putting a stop to all this; it was not as though she did not know how it would all end, but she found she did not want to.

'I assure you darling, it is not friendship that leads our dear Larsa to hesitate to bring me to trial. He has more to hide than I; my crimes are all in the open, his, alas, have yet to be revealed.'

Penelo fisted a wad of his shirt in her right hand over his left shoulder as she tried to pay attention to what he told her, think about it, and winnow out the truth from the fabrication. This was harder said than done as Balthier eased her crisp blouse out of her skirt and continued to nibble absently at her neck with the barest hint of teeth.

'I,' she swallowed as his hand, colder than her skin, slipped under her blouse and stroked over her stomach. 'I don't believe you,' she said with more conviction that she felt as she pushed away from him.

She wasn't the girl she had been at eighteen. She wasn't going to be tricked again into believing what he said and did was truth. 'You've lied to me before, Larsa hasn't.'

Balthier let her go and she was unsurprised to find that his eyes remained quizzically distant and unmoved by passion. Her heart plummeted as she realised that he really had just been playing her to get his own way……whatever that was.

'No,' he replied coolly, watching her tuck her blouse back in and put herself to rights with detached interest, 'I have _used_ you before, but I have never lied to you. Your dearest Larsa is in the process of doing both right now, and you, my deluded little optimist, are too simple-minded to see it.'

* * *

_Love is what we do when we wish to make penance for our sins; there is no other reason to inflict such needless suffering. _

Tears were threatening to break free of her mental defences and Penelo turned her face into the wind to avoid letting_ him_ see them. Balthier sighed and she heard the shifting of cotton against rough rock face as he moved forward and dropped a strangely delicate kiss upon her neck.

'I really wish that you had not involved yourself in all this, for I really am very fond of you.'

Penelo laughed thickly as she tried very hard not to cry; it was like no time had passed at all and she was still the infatuated girl that Balthier had indulged, played with, and then ultimately discarded.

With her back to him she held herself under tight control as he snaked his hands around her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder, breath tickling over the loose tendrils of her bound up hair.

'If that's true then I think I'd sooner you hated me. It would be less painful.'

Any other man would have at least pretended to be shamed or penitent at that, but Balthier simply chuckled lazily and kissed her shoulder through the velvet of his own jacket.

'Hmm, there's hope for you yet then, if you have sense enough to realise that.'

He rose to his feet and stepped around her in the direction of the steps back up to the port. Penelo jumped to her feet as he began strolling away from her.

'Do you want me to hate you?' she called beginning to run after him, not because she was a love-sick silly girl, but because she had made a promise to Larsa.

He stopped, paused in mid-step, rolled his shoulders and turned back to her with opaque eyes, 'It would be helpful, yes.' His voice was crisp and sharp as a papercut all of a sudden.

Penelo, now abreast with Balthier, stared up at him dumbfounded, 'Why?'

His hand shot out and fastened, vicelike, about her elbow and he tugged her off balance, eyes hard as jet stones, 'Because it would be better for you, Penelo, in the long run, if you learned to hate me.'

Penelo found herself astounded. She rather thought she already did hate him quite a bit, but that had never stopped her wanting him, and wanting to be noticed by him. Unable to even begin to fathom what he was planning she simply looked at him, aware of the tight, almost painful, grip he had on her elbow.

A sickly smile scythed across his lips as his eyes flicked from her to quest across the ocean horizon.

'It's almost laughable,' he said softly, voice almost swallowed by the breeze as he shook his head bitterly but never once loosened his grip on her arm, 'more than once in the last year I actually found myself missing you, my girl.'

His words gave way to a derisive laugh as he turned and began to pull her roughly along with him towards the stairs back up to the port. Penelo had known Balthier to be irritable, cold, indifferent, and patronising towards her, but he had never been rough and she had never really been afraid of him……at least until now.

'Balthier what is going on?' she asked the old question again and tried to pull free of him. His grip on her elbow, welded to her arm like steel, did not loosen.

'I would think that obvious,' he snapped, 'You are here on the auspices of the Empire, my enemy in this whole debacle, that makes you at best an agent provocateur, and at the worst, an immediate threat to Balfonheim.'

Penelo, outraged now, managed to wrench her arm free, 'I am not a threat to…'

She did not have time to finish as Balthier snatched back her arm – both her arms – in his bruising grip, leaning down into her face and biting off each syllable as his eyes, dark black pits, burned into hers.

'You are now my hostage against the authorities, Larsa, and Ashe. Do you understand? You are a prisoner. Now be a good girl and come along quietly.'

He turned from her as she gaped at him. Her mind in turmoil, she had no defence against him as he all but dragged her back up to the manse.

How had this happened, she found herself wondering, almost in shock. How had things shifted from him buying her pastries and complimenting her on her 'charms' to the point where he was snarling in her face and accusing her of being a threat to the entire port of Balfonheim?

More importantly, how was she going to fix this?

* * *

_To be an optimist one must have fortitude; the whole world is against you and the whole world and all in it want to see you gone. _

Balthier deposited her into the very room she had stayed in, all those years ago, before the Bahamut, and before Lemures. Penelo did not know whether to laugh or cry when the lock turned behind her and she found herself staring at that old, cloth covered easel.

Possessed by shock more than anything else, she padded across the bare, dusty boards of the room and pulled the cloth from the canvas. When she saw what was revealed her stomach performed a neat somersault.

The watercolour painting of a young girl, curled up on the window seat bathed in burnished gold sunlight, an oddly solemn but wistful expression on her unadorned face, was now complete. Where once it had been no more than a faint tracery of pencil lines and shading, the picture was now full of subtle colour in shades of pale blue and liquid yellow, comfortable autumnal browns and rose-brushed pink.

Penelo's eyes travelled of their own accord down to the bottom right hand corner, and, as suspected, words had been etched sharply, almost jaggedly, in thick black ink across the canvas.

_Grace under fire._

She flopped limply onto her knees, fists balling in the folds of the rough sacking that had covered the painting from view. She bowed her head and started to cry and as she did so, fingers moving nervously across the sack-cloth, her thumb pricked against a pin that held a little piece of card tacked onto the fabric.

Pulling the card free Penelo wiped her eyes with her free hand and flipped the card over; Balthier's familiar, barely legible, scrawl stretched spikely across the pure whiteness.

_Dear Penelo,_

_You will find the window unlocked and, a fine figure of girl, such as you, should have no trouble shimmying out of said window; you are free to escape at your leisure. However if there is a part of you that truly does have faith in me, I would request that you don't. _

_The choice is yours, my dear, make it wisely._

_B. _


	3. Chapter 3

_One man looks upon the riches of another and says onto that man: your wealth is bought on pain of your conscience. The rich man looks at the first and says: very well. To each man a choice, the riches of the soul, or the pleasures of the flesh. We are all worm food in the end._

Penelo giggled as she stretched out across the enormous bed in the huge bedroom filled with cloth of gold hanging draperies and finest silk upholstery. Under the rub of her hands the satin sheets felt like water and she rolled onto her back taking with her the thick mass of bedding until she was cocooned in excess.

The ceiling above her head was gorgeous, swirled and patterned with verdigree and azure, crimson and gold and plaster mullioned mouldings encircled the dangling crystal-light chandelier. Languid and contented Penelo chewed absently on a strand of her hair as she gazed blankly up at the ceiling.

After a moment it occurred to her that she was a little thirsty as it was just a trifle too warm in the room. Rolling across the bed (and it took two and half rotations before she reached the edge of the massive bed) Penelo gathered the bedding with her and planted her bare feet on the floor.

Her destination was the small, two person, round table with the enamelled frieze surface that held an almost empty bottle of wine, two crystal glasses, and the ruin of a plate of sweetmeats, roasted fowl, and delicate marzipan and fondant cakes.

Penelo managed exactly three steps towards the table before dizziness (that half finished bottle of wine was only the second bottle she had helped to finish earlier this evening) and the misfortune of tripping over the heavy embroidered bed sheets, threaded with pure silver, that she clutched about her, led her to fall in a disordered heap onto the furred rug.

A snort of stifled laughter from the other occupant of the room informed her that her little trip to the floor had most certainly not gone unnoticed, even though Balthier made absolutely no attempt to help her up as she tried to re-arrange the bedding so that it kept her covered but no longer tangled about her ankles.

'That wasn't funny,' she told him with wounded dignity as she dragged herself up, throwing some of the excess bedding over one arm as she walked, head held high, to the table.

He did not bother to answer her; head bowed over the roll top desk he worked at. The careful work of forging an official stamp of the Rozzarian Guild of Customs, which he needed to pass off the cargo hold of counterfeit goods held in the Strahl as legitimate, was absorbing all his available attention.

Penelo thought about wandering over to look over his shoulder as he deftly manipulated metal twine and wax into the intricate design of a Falcon fighting a Wyrm that was the crest of Ambervale, but decided not to, as Balthier was fussy about people interfering with his 'light' while he worked.

Instead she poured herself the last of the wine and selected a cocoa topped fondant cake from the plate; they had been in Rozzaria for a week now and Penelo had become rather partial to Rozzarian sweets and desserts. Vaan told her she'd grow fat as a Seeq if she wasn't careful but Balthier did not seem to mind indulging her fancies during this trip.

In fact spending the night in the Pizacera hotel, the most expensive and exclusive in Ambervale, had been Penelo's idea (though when she had seen the grand and beautifully turreted building atop the Ambervale Hill she had not known what it was) and Balthier, who was in very good spirits on this venture, had not hesitated to pay out the Gil for one night in the Grand Apartment.

Truth be told, Penelo had been so thoroughly spoiled and pampered while in Rozzaria that she had begun to wonder when the other shoe would drop and something nasty would happen.

With cake in one hand and wine glass in the other (the bed sheets tightly knotted about her chest and held up more by luck than design) Penelo drifted over to the large window facing out across the low lands of central Rozzaria.

Pushing open the thick golden and white laced curtains she peered out at the rich, inky black night, picked out across the gently undulating land beyond by the golden pinprick lights of houses.

She sighed with contentment and then had to grab for the slipping bed sheets, which in turn made her spill a little of her wine onto the floor. Anxiously Penelo tried to sop up the spill with the end of the bed sheets.

'You Rabanastrans have no sophistication.'

Balthier murmured from behind her and she realised, as he slipped his arms about her waist and took the glass of wine from her, that he had snuck up on her without her notice.

'That bear skin rug is worth more Gil than most of your countrymen earn in a year; in fact that wine you have been drinking all night costs more Gil than is strictly decent.'

Penelo opened her mouth apologise and ended up hiccupping. She blushed enormously and Balthier sighed, though she thought she heard a thread of amusement in the exhalation, as he released her. He finished her glass of wine and put the glass back on the table as he passed.

Penelo, her ringlets wildly disordered, her cheeks flush with fine wine and rich food and her eyes luminous with the bubbling excitement of being in the midst of all this wealth and luxury, padded after him, as if it was the most natural thing in Ivalice to do.

Balthier, shirt unbuttoned but drawn closed over his shoulders, and bare feet poking out of his tight trousers, flopped onto the bed and patted the mattress beside him as if summoning a faithful pet.

For a moment the gesture jarred with Penelo but, sleepy and tipsy, she shook it off and awkwardly clambered back into the bed and settled the bedding over her and Balthier. Her fingers kneaded the soft, fur-lined blankets with an audible purr of pleasure.

'You are growing decadent; Fran is of the opinion I am a bad influence on you. She rather thinks I should cut you loose to save your soul.'

Penelo looked over at him sharply, eyes widening. Fran, who was in Rozzaria as well, just like Vaan, had said nothing of this to her. She could not think of a single thing to say as panic made her feel a little ill as it swirled in her stomach.

The thought of no more Balthier, no more fine gifts because he liked to see her face light up with delight, no more interesting places to visit and new things to try that she and Vaan lacked the sophistication to know about, popped her little bubble of happiness.

'I'm sorry,' she whispered in small voice.

Balthier sighed and drew her into his arms, and Penelo went, pillowing her head on his shoulder. 'It was too much,' she whispered twisting her fingers into one of the button holes of Balthier's loose shirt nervously, 'I shouldn't have said I wished I could stay in a place like this; it was wrong of me.'

Balthier, staring up at the ceiling with an uncharacteristically grim expression (though Penelo saw it not), closed his eyes and cursed himself and various gods whom he did not in fact believe in, for the unfortunate fact that, despite his better judgement, his commonsense and basic character, he had become quite addicted to making this poorly educated, unsophisticated, and above all, alarmingly _innocent,_ Dalmascan girl happy.

He knew that ultimately he would only hurt her, as Fran had told him. He knew equally well that he really didn't want to hurt her. However it seemed to Balthier that Penelo would have to end up hurt in the long run, despite his intentions, simply because he knew himself too well.

Oddly wistful he stroked fingers through her dishevelled ringlets (that she had spent hours curling in the Rozzarian fashion) as she drifted off to sleep, her small hand with its cracked nails, curled over his breastbone.

There was absolutely no choice in the matter, Balthier resolved (and this time, unlike all the other times since she'd inveigled her way into his affections that night during the Lemures confusion) he would cut ties with Penelo once and for all.

Any pain he caused her now would be counteracted by the knowledge that he was saving her the pain of discovering that, fancy hotel rooms and expensive trinkets aside, what he could give her was not worth the price of what she would lose.

It really was a pity though, because strangely, he was so very fond of her.

* * *

_If all the world is a stage and we all merely players, pray tell me, who writes the scripts and why are all my acts but tragedy or farce? _

After spending an inordinate amount of time staring at the piece of card with its cryptic note Penelo tucked the card numbly into her skirt pocket and turned blindly to the wardrobe.

She was dully unsurprised to find that someone had lined the hangers with the clothes she had brought with her to Balfonheim and the bottom of the wardrobe with her changes of footwear.

So it had all been planned? Elza had let slip that Balthier had been expecting her to come, on errand from Larsa, and Penelo now thought that he must have planned the whole exchange of the day, from the moment she had barged into his bedroom to the moment he had locked her in here. That would explain the presence of the easel and the note, left for her to find.

All manner of thoughts bustled about in her head; primarily she worried about what was really going on with the million Gil. She might not completely trust Balthier but at the same time she did not believe he would risk the enmity of both Larsa and Ashe for Gil alone; there was something more going on, that was certain. She also found herself toying with the idea, which despite her pride and commonsense warmed her immeasurably, that Balthier might actually want her here with him.

Of course, the sensible part of her brain pointed out, he might very well want her here, merely to further his own ends.

Even during those heady days when she had stupidly imagined herself his lover, he had not been above using her in various ways (as bait, as distraction, as lookout) to line his pockets and achieve his goals. She could not take anything for granted where Balthier was concerned. More often than not, Penelo had come to believe, his motives were a mystery to himself as well as everyone else.

Her gaze skittered to the window (which she had already checked and, indeed, it was unlocked). She could do the sensible thing right this moment and gather up what belongings of hers she could carry, climb out of the window, and book a ticket on the first commercial airship out of the aerodrome. She did not have to go back to Archades, or even Rabanastre, she could fly to Rozzaria and track down Vaan and Fran instead.

She could go anywhere in Ivalice and turn her back on stolen Gil and sky pirates and secret governmental conspiracies completely. She did not have to do anything, even Larsa had said so.

She looked from the window to the door and then back to the window. Her toes wriggled across the dusty boards as her fingers knotted together and she pursed her lips in a maelstrom of indecision.

She thought about being sensible, about protecting her own interests (because no one else would). She thought about the last eighteen months of standing on her own two feet and learning who she was without the crutch of her best friend's presence or familiar surroundings.

She thought about bygone days, and more particularly, bygone nights, of silks and satins and noise and excitement, of a cynical laugh and a black-eyed smile that had a softer side only visible on the knife edge of the dawn.

Penelo walked over to the window, without bothering to gather her clothes (she could always buy more – she still had her savings from her year in Archades after all) and without once sparing a glance towards the easel she lifted the sill and kicked one leg out of the opening.

Balthier was right; it was easy enough for Penelo to shimmy down the wall, with its accidental footholds made by ivy and irregular brickwork. All the while as she made her 'escape' the piece of card with Balthier's note on it seemed to burn a hole through her pocket. Her heart was thumping in her throat as she scaled the wall of the manse with peculiar ease.

From the open window on the third floor she could hear the same light piano music she had heard drifting over the waves when she first arrived that day; in the moonlight the music sounded oddly eerie and mournful.

Panting lightly from her exertions, her nails broken and bleeding a little, Penelo crawled into the third floor window head first and landed on her hands and knees on the bare boards of the attic floor.

The scent of paint, ink, and white spirits stung her nostrils even as it settled her nerves and she looked up at a gramophone set up across the room from the window, the magickally imbued music machine proving to be the originator of the piano melody.

A moment later, as she worked at getting her breath back, a pair of black boots appeared before her, attached to long legs encased in dark trousers and long fingered hands with colourful rings reached down to pull her to her feet.

Penelo looked up at Balthier who was wearing an old shirt, untucked and liberally splashed with paint, and was, in turn, regarding her with wry, almost solemn, brown eyes, as he loosely held her by the upper arms.

'You silly, silly girl. Why didn't you run?' he asked her quietly, sounding genuinely aggrieved and confused.

Penelo tried to put her skirt and blouse to rights, realised that she had more or less ruined her clothes beyond repair already, and shoved her dishevelled hair from her face.

'Because you gave me the choice not to.' she told him frankly.

* * *

_Honesty is a construct of the self-righteous and the chronically deluded. I am never truthful, but at least I'm honest about it._

She came slithering through the open window with all the sinuous grace of a serpent wrapped in tattered red silk.

Balthier watching her thump down on the boards, closed his eyes in a plea for patience, and wiped his hands on the paint smeared rag attached to the easel by a loose nail.

From the moment she had turned up on his doorstep and proved a great number of his suspicions correct (though she knew this not) Balthier had been engaged in a fierce argument with himself over whether or not he was truly going to go through with his previously devised plan of action.

In the end, the note and the easel had been a last minute inspiration he had put together while Penelo sat downstairs in the breakfast room politely waiting for him to dress before she began questioning him (had she been more aggressive he would not have been able to arrange the choice at all).

It was against his own interests, now that she was here before him and so very ripe for all manner of manipulation by him or Archadia, to simply let her go, but the affection he bore her demanded he at least give her the option of making her own escape.

'You silly, silly girl. Why didn't you run?' he asked her tiredly, irritated that she had refused to take advantage of the escape route he had provided for her and instead had followed it right to the feet of her would-be jailor.

'Because you gave me the choice not to.'

She told him frankly and he almost groaned. As was always the case Penelo managed to inspire in him an infuriating contradiction of feeling.

On the one hand her blind optimism, her unwarranted loyalty to him, and the look of soft, starry admiration in her eyes filled him with profound irritation. Unfortunately, and for reasons he could not begin to fathom, her sweetness, her honesty, and her determination to believe in his better nature (despite all evidence to the contrary and his best efforts to be an absolute bastard towards her) inspired in him a strange wish to, in some small way, be worthy of that faith and affection.

It was an interminable bind and usually ended up, no matter what he did, leaving him feeling like an absolute heel. He pushed her away with one arm and reeled her in with the other, and for the life of him he did not know why.

Feeling ill-equipped to deal with that _look _from her right this instance (that mixture of girlish infatuation and solemn eyed hurt) he turned back to his easel and the painting awaiting his attention.

Penelo followed him, 'If I leave I'll be disappointing Larsa.'

She told him provocatively as she came around the easel to look at the acrylic based portrait of Fran he had been working on off and on when grand larceny and politics did not take up all his time.

'Oh, that's lovely.'

Penelo breathed and Balthier, who did not like people seeing his unfinished paintings (or his finished ones for that matter), tensed a little but refrained from saying something needlessly unfair simply because he was uncomfortable.

He dithered uselessly with paint brush poised, deeply self-conscious, though he did not show it, as Penelo quietly stood at his shoulder studying the painting. The portrait was a study in black and white, shades that suited Fran impeccably, and bold straight lines. He was rather pleased with it, all the same he did not feel able to continue with Penelo at his shoulder. His painting was too important to him to tolerate an audience.

Penelo, unaware of how uncomfortable she was making him with her mere presence alone, leaned her brow against his shoulder (her head reaching no higher – Dalmascan's were a stumpy breed).

'You haven't really fallen out with Fran, have you?'

She asked quietly startling him with one of her rare flashes of insight (a trait she shared with Vaan -Balthier did not truly think either Rabanastran was stupid to a fault but neither were they the sharpest blades in the kitchen either). He met those wide, clear grey-blue eyes.

'Fran turned up with Vaan telling the story that she had left you because of your recklessness, just weeks before you robbed the Galleon. It was an alibi, wasn't it? So no one would think Fran and Vaan were in on it with you.'

He thought about lying, but decided that it wasn't worth the look of hurt in her eyes, 'You should be careful, my girl, anyone might think you were developing an intellect.'

Penelo twisted her hands together in that irritating way she had. He could almost see her thoughts bouncing about in her mind. He watched a variety of expressions pass over her pretty, simple features.

'Can I trust you?' she asked softly.

'No.'

The fact that she had to ask simply brought home to him, again, how very different they were and how dangerous it was for the poor girl to remain at his side. If he was any sort of gentleman he would have hog-tied her and shipped her back to Archades and Larsa on the first available airship.

Penelo clasped his arm in hers and rested her head against his shoulder again, 'That's what I thought you'd say.'

She let go of his arm and wrapped her arms about his waist instead – another aspect of her character he found adversely endearing - her tendency to hug people without invitation. Balthier was not fond of touching unless he initiated, and could therefore control, the contact.

'Can I trust Larsa?'

She asked in that same soft, sweet voice. With his paintbrush poised and the paint drying on the bristles Balthier considered the pros and cons of lying versus telling the truth.

'Our little Lord Larsa is very fond of you.'

He said in neutral tones when he could not decide which objective he wished to achieve more, the long term goal that had set him on collision course with House Solidor, or the short-term goal of extricating Penelo from the whole affair.

Penelo smiled up at him, though the smile had an edge, 'So are you. At least that's what you keep saying.'

'Hmm,' he was running out of answers that neatly avoided the need to answer her at all.

'So,' Penelo said meditatively stepping around behind him and pressing her cheek against his back as she hugged him a little tighter. Not for the first time Balthier wondered if the girl had some manner of character flaw that led her to cleave to men who were bad for her.

'I'm stuck between you and Larsa, and both of you are very fond of me, but both of you are also using me for your own reasons, which I'm not allowed to know, and only one of you can be in the right. How's that for a sum up?' she added cheerfully.

Balthier, not at all happy, sighed, 'Surprisingly accurate; I don't suppose I can persuade you to leave while we are still on good terms, hmm?'

'Nope,' he felt her rise up on tip-toe to kiss him between the shoulder blades through his shirt, 'I'm in this to the end now. You're stuck with me.'

Balthier rather aggressively dumped his paintbrush into the water jar and gritted his teeth; he had the feeling Penelo spoke more truly than she knew. It occurred to him, with savage amusement, that perhaps he'd been wrong all along? Perhaps he wasn't a bad influence on her at all; perhaps, in fact, she was changing him?

It would be a bloody disaster if he ended up developing a conscience this late in the game.


	4. Chapter 4

_I am not defined by truth or fallacy; neither my words nor my deeds am I. I am to be found in the quiet and the silences between my every breath._

Penelo was bored. She had been under house arrest for nearly five days, and while she was free to roam about as she pleased in the Manse she was forbidden from leaving for any reason.

The first couple of days she had amused herself by poking about in Balthier's attic studio, looking through his sketches and half finished paintings and listening to the Cryst-recordings on the gramophone. She had discovered the Manse library on the afternoon of the second day and perused the shelves for reading material but found only mixed results.

Penelo had never really been to school; she had been taught to read and write and basic arithmetic by her mother and then by Migelo, but it was only when she discovered the wider world of Ivalice beyond the desert that she discovered the simple joy of learning.

One of her favourite pastimes in Archades had been to visit the grand public library in Trant and read romance novels to her heart's content. Archades, she had come to feel, was a rather brash, heartless place in many ways, but she could not fault the people of Archades for their love of learning; even the vulgars were allowed to come up to Trant to visit the library and read.

Still the Manse' small library room was sadly lacking in romance novels of any sort (hardly surprising; Penelo did not imagine either Reddas, or now, Balthier, being over fond of romance books) and the books that were there were either huge, heavy tomes filled with dry facts and scientific imponderables or books on mechanical engineering. Penelo had already ploughed her way through a book on the history of Balfonheim Port by the fifth day and was not hopeful of finding anything else she could read.

She had, on the third day, volunteered to help the maid with her cleaning duties and whiled away some hours scrubbing floors and polishing surfaces, but the cook would not let her assist in the kitchen to prepare meals (Penelo did not know if this was because the cook feared she'd try and poison everyone as an act of sabotage or if she simply knew of Penelo's less than exemplary culinary skill).

Thus by the fifth day of her house arrest Penelo was bored, restless and listless. She knew she probably ought to be resisting her captors and trying to discover the Gil, but that seemed a waste of time when her captor wasn't even here.

Balthier had left the Manse (and possibly Balfonheim) sometime around dawn on the second day of her enforced stay and Penelo had not seen him since. She did not even though where he had gone or when he intended on coming back and when she asked Elza the other woman just gave her a hard, suspicious look.

Therefore with absolutely nothing to do Penelo took up bucket, mop, broom and feather duster and began to clean the entire three storey manse from top to bottom even though she had only finished doing exactly the same thing yesterday. At the rate she was going the Manse would be so sparkling clean ships out to see would be able to see it glittering like a beacon calling them home.

She found a supply of dried flowers and herbs left over from Reddas' day (for Reddas had cared about a clean, sweet smelling house much more than the current occupant) and filled little sachets of cloth with the citric sweet assortment, hanging them from door-handles and hooks to freshen the air. She used chairs to reach the cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling and she grazed her knees on the rough tile of the kitchen scrubbing the ground in dirt away.

Unfortunately, so industrious was she in her cleaning, that the whole house was sparkling clean and smelling sweet by late morning and the afternoon and long, dull evening, stretched towards her like an eternity of empty time that she must somehow fill or go mad with inactivity.

That was when she decided to do the laundry; not just her laundry but everyone who lived in the manse (and that was not easy to pin down in terms of numbers; Balthier seemed to be a fairly new arrival, but Elza, Rikken and Raz, also called the manse home).

Because she was not allowed out to string up the wet clothes on a line outside (and she was not sure there even was a clothes line outside) she created one out of a piece of twine strung across the laundry room ceiling.

She lined the floor with towels that needed to be washed anyway to stop the floor from getting dripping wet. Before she hung up the clothes however she ran them through the mangle, squeezing out the excess water and working the crank handle as hard as she could to make sure the clothes were properly pressed.

Penelo, so engrossed in her self-assigned domestic tasks, did not notice the shadow darkening the doorway to the laundry room. A shadow who was watching her, kneeling on a quilt of towelling, her hair in single braided down her back, and her cheeks flushed from the honest exertion of hard work, with total incomprehension.

'What are you doing?'

Penelo yelped with surprise and her hand slipped from the handle of the mangle, she fell forward and just narrowly avoided cracking her chin on the frame of the appliance. She spun to face the voice.

'Oh, Balthier you startled me.'

* * *

_I am not simple and I am not complicated; I simply am and in me there are multitudes of contractions and secrets you shall never know. I am no book and you cannot read me._

It was a fair assessment to say that when Balthier returned to the Balfonheim manse on the day in question, he was not a happy man.

He had just spent three days involved in..._complex_...negotiations with a representative assortment of the most influential and powerful sky and sea pirates in Ivalice; all of whom seemed to view a loaded gun as a good negotiation tool, and all of whom, were united in their belief that they were entitled to a share of the Archades million.

Balthier, who understood that this was just a matter of pirates being pirates, nevertheless would rather not had to deal with it all at the present time. He had also received a coded missive from Fran (by way of Vaan – who didn't know how to spell any better in code than he did in standard letters). The news, needless to say, was not good.

_Balthier,_

_Checked out Bervenia like you said and it's just like you thought. Rozzaria is behind all the fighting; they're after the magicite deposits. I can't believe that Al-Cid is trying to start a war just to give Dalmasca magicite so Ashe will marry him, but it sure looks like you're right. Oh, and Fran says to tell you the death toll is now over a thousand. We saw the soldiers dragging young men out of villages to be taken away...I don't know what happened to them but I really don't think they'll be coming home to their families._

_Fran says that whatever you're planning on doing you need to do it quick because it doesn't look like Rozzaria much misses not getting Larsa's Gil._

_Vaan (and Fran – obviously)_

After the week he'd had and upon receiving such heartening news it was no wonder that he was not feeling at his most buoyantly ebullient (not that he ever managed ebullient – sardonically pleased was the best he could usually manage).

Therefore when he entered the manse to find the whole place smelling strongly of lemons, apple blossom and soapy water, he was already quite a bit on edge. On questioning Elza (who was lounging on the sofa smoking her pipe and eating cherries) he discovered that their enforced houseguest was responsible for the pristine (but damp) state of the manse.

_I kidnap and imprison her and she does housework?_

Already suspecting that he had not the fortitude to cope with Penelo at this time he nevertheless went down to the laundry room (and it came as a shock to Balthier to discover there was such a room – laundry rooms were something that happened to other people, in Balthier's worldview).

She was humming while crouched on her knees in soft caramel brown silk trousers and a white tight-fitted off the shoulder top that had -yes, indeed, - sunset orange ribbon fastenings at the sides. Balthier, feeling the overworked cogs and gears of his brain grind to a dead halt at this incongruous sight of domestic competence could only stand in the doorway and stare.

'What are you doing?' he demanded already exasperated and then watched, growing increasingly annoyed, as she jumped out of her happy, cheerily singing daze, and almost fell face first into the mangle.

'Oh, Balthier, you startled me.'

He closed his eyes and willed himself to be patient; however easy it might be to take it out on her, Penelo was not the cause, nor a deserved recipient of his anger. On the other hand, she was doing the bloody laundry. What sane person, upon being essentially imprisoned by a former lover, did their laundry and swept their floors for them?

He did not understand this woman, he truly did not, and it was driving him quietly insane trying to work out what made Penelo the strange mix of naive goodness and indomitable moral strength that he found so very difficult to ignore.

The cursed woman in question bobbed to her feet and padded across the floor of towels towards him, pretty, flush face creasing in concern, 'What's happened to you?'

She reached for him and it was only as her blue eyes ghosted over his face, and her hand reached out to brush his left cheek, that he remembered the cut across his face and the bruised cheekbone he had received at the hands of one pirate who would be taking his meals in through straw for a good many weeks to come (Balthier was also, when forced, an advocate of the 'hit them until they agree with you' school of diplomacy so popular with pirate-kind).

For a moment he simply scrutinised the girl with narrowed eyes. If it was not for the fact that he knew just how resilient, fierce and on occasion, deadly, Penelo could be he would discount her odd behaviour (laundry for the gods own sake!) as the acts of someone without any native wit; as it was, knowing Penelo as he did, he could not even dismiss her as an imbecile and call it quits.

Pushing by her and her soft look of concern and her solicitous hands, and resisting strenuously the urge to shake her by the shoulders and demand that she at least pretend to be angered by his treatment of her (as any sane person would be) he instead allowed himself one frustrated admission.

'I do not understand you.'

He took a deep breath and tried to hold back his irritation, that same irritation he always felt around Penelo, which was so indelibly combined with an affection he could not deny. 'You've been trapped in this house for almost a week, in a Port you do not care for, and what do you do? You do the bloody laundry.'

He turned to look at her and, had he been a more honest man, or one more in tune with his own emotions, he might have demanded she explain why it was that he could see no anger in her eyes or any resent towards him. Why was it that she was content to patiently wait for him to decide what he was to do with her, without any resistance, without the faintest suggestion of hurt or betrayal; was she trying to make him feel more guilty than he already did?

Instead he said nothing and simply looked at this girl (no – woman – give her the respect she was due) and wondered how he ever hoped to be free of her if he could not even isolate and explain the strange alchemy of her character that made her so fascinating to him.

* * *

_I once heard a tale of an old man on his deathbed and what his last words to his faithful wife had been: Wife, the man had said, I am not a great man, or a rich man, but if I have made you laugh or smile but once in all these years together, then my life has not been in vain; for what greater power is there, the old man had told his grieving wife, than the power to make others happy?_

'You've been trapped in this house for almost a week, in a Port you do not care for, and what do you do? You do the bloody laundry.'

Penelo did not understand why this should upset him (the laundry needed doing and no one else was going to do it) and she was more than a little stung by the comment. 'Like you said, I've been here for days and haven't had anything else to do.'

She glared at him and folded her arms across her chest, huffily, 'Don't worry though I haven't starched your shirts with poison or anything like that.'

Balthier, who had been staring at the mangle and the lines of drip drying clothes with a certain baffled annoyance, glanced back at her with just the faintest hint of amusement threatening the steely irritation pinching his brow. He sighed and raised one hand so he could pluck at the cuff of the other; as he did so she realised that the white cuff was stained with rusty brown smears -dried blood – and his knuckles were split and grazed raw.

'You've been brawling,' she accused, in much the same way she would chastise Vaan for getting into a fight on the streets when they were children. Balthier, detecting the note of disapproval raised one eyebrow quizzically.

Penelo would not have countenanced it until she'd seen it herself, but Balthier could bare knuckle box surprisingly well for a man of his refinement. Those metal rings he wore also served as makeshift knuckle dusters and she knew that, aristocrat or not, Balthier had no qualms about punching below the belt in order to win.

'I've been in discussion with some of the most influential pirates in Ivalice on how to best distribute the one million Gil.'

Balthier said tiredly, trying to jest but not having the energy for it. A scowl tightened his features as he rubbed a thumb over his own split, swollen bottom lip, 'The bastards didn't help a whit in acquiring the loot but they offer _persuasive_ arguments on why they deserve a percentage of it after the fact.'

He raised his long fingers to his forehead and rubbed his brow as if he was developing a headache. 'Why does everything smell of lemons in here?' he growled irritably.

Penelo considered his words as she answered his question, 'It's a nice fresh scent, and it clears the head. It's much better than the smell of wine and old cigar smoke.' She added defensively when he gave her a sharp, dark look.

'Bah,' Balthier grumbled, clearly very irritable and doing a poor job of hiding it. For Penelo, who had seen this man quite literally laugh in the face of certain death, it was surprising and not a little disconcerting to see him so ruffled and perturbed.

Balthier rounded on her, dropping his hand from his brow, 'I ask again, what is wrong with you, woman? I lock you up, with nothing to do, and instead of breaking a window and escaping, or fighting your way out, as you are more than able to do, you do my bloody laundry and clean the sodding floors.'

A flicker of anger rose in Penelo's chest, 'Don't snap at me. It's not my fault the other pirates are threatening you. You stole that Gil and now you have to live with the consequences.'

Balthier turned smouldering eyes on her, 'Who said the other sky pirates have been threatening me?'

Penelo, not prepared to be intimidated by the cold, silky hardness of his voice, tilted her chin defiantly.

'It's obvious; you're covered in cuts and bruises and you've obviously fought your way out of a tight spot. I'm not an idiot Balthier; I know that the other pirates will want to take the Gil from you if they can.'

A muscle in his cheek jumped as he ground his jaw and turned away from her walking swiftly towards the door. 'Hmm, not an idiot, perhaps, but I'll be damned if I can understand how your mind works.' He muttered ill-spiritedly.

Penelo opened her mouth to say something in her defence, but serendipity spared her the trouble. Balthier in too much the hurry to look where he was going, tripped over the bucket of water, with the mop stuck in it, that Penelo had left by the door to the laundry room, and staggered off balance.

Penelo expected the man to catch his balance with his usual poise and aplomb, and no doubt he would have liked to have done so; instead he went crashing to the floor, landing badly, arms first to brace him and ending up sprawled across the floor.

Penelo froze caught between worry that he had split his head on the stone floor outside the laundry room and the nearly uncontrollable urge to collapse in fits of laughter.

'Oh, bloody marvellous, that's all I need. The leading man felled by a dirty mop and a bucket.'

Balthier grumbled as he levered himself up, immediately beginning to fastidiously wipe off the elbows of his long pale grey coat sleeves. Penelo, convinced he had not damaged himself, started to giggle.

Balthier, sitting up against the wall in a puddle of spilled water from the overturned bucket, looked up at her and glared, 'This is not amusing.'

'N...no,' Penelo was almost shaking with suppressed laughter and she shook her head rapidly as her eyes teared with the desire to collapse in peals of laughter. She could feel her cheeks growing hot and her lips straining to hold in her mirth.

Balthier watching her, tried to hold on to his aggrieved dignity and glower her into submission, but she could see his dark eyes dancing and his own lips twitching with laughter.

'Ahem, this is not funny,' he repeated a little unsteadily, laughter welling up in his eyes, as Penelo drunkenly staggered over to him with the intention of helping him up.

She ended up, however, moving too quickly, and slipped on the water on the stone floor herself. Catching her balance she wound up bracing herself with one hand on the top of Balthier's head as she teetered perilously close to falling into his lap.

The laughter, rippling through her body in seismic waves, broke free and Penelo allowed herself to flop onto the wet floor beside him as she all but screamed with jollity.

'You...you went flying...and your legs...and your arms...and you looked so...' Penelo could barely breathe as she buried her head into his shoulder and felt the minute tremors of suppressed laughter rocking his chest.

'This...is...not...' Balthier himself was struggling not to laugh as Penelo went into near apoplexy of delight, '...not funny...' in the end shaking his head and going red in the cheeks even Balthier could not keep his composure and he started to laugh as uncontrollably and as hard as Penelo.

He had to press his sleeve to his mouth in the end to smother the rocking laughter before the whole household heard their hysterics and witnessed Penelo and the leading man collapsed against a wall in a puddle of dirty, soapy water.

With tears of laughter streaming down both their faces Balthier eventually moved to stand up, pulling Penelo with him. Penelo was still hiccupping with giggles and Balthier gave her what was obviously meant as a stern look (except that his eyes were bright with humour) to quell another outburst of levity.

'Well,' he said taking a breath and letting it out, as Penelo tried to sober up, 'I think we could both do with a change of clothes, hmm. The seat of my trousers is soaked through.'

He muttered and Penelo couldn't help giggling even more as he pulled her through the manse to the master bedroom (of course all Penelo's clothes were in her room -but she supposed laughter could naturally lead on to other more _intimate _forms of stress relief).

She didn't really mind if that was his plan; at least she could be sure she wouldn't be bored for the next few hours.

* * *

_If only I was a faithless man; but alas we must all cleave to something whether creed or greed. I am a slave to my conviction and I am afraid of my beliefs. _

Some hours later Penelo was wrapped up (almost smothered in fact) in Balthier's bathrobe sitting on the edge of his bed and brushing her damp hair. Balthier was fully dressed (in clean, dry clothes) and was standing by the window. His earlier levity had faded but he did not seem to be in a bad mood either; instead he was thoughtful as he looked out to sea and that, in many ways, was all the more dangerous.

'I haven't tendered a ransom notice for you yet, did you know that?'

'Wha...?'

Penelo should be use to Balthier's odd habit of starting sentences as if she should know what he meant without either context or explanation, however he still surprised her and she could only blink at him, hair brush half way through a hank of hair.

'I've been a fool; captured the treasure but forgot to realise that our dear, beloved Emperor might not realise you were my captive and not my guest.'

Balthier turned from the window and was briefly haloed in the pink and gold shimmer of sunset as he came and flopped (gracefully) down onto the edge of the bed. Without asking he took the hairbrush from her hands and began to run it through her hair from root to tip. 'No doubt Larsa assumes you are a free woman still; perhaps he even hopes you are close to finding the Gil, hmm?'

Penelo swallowed. She had never had a man brush her hair before and despite all the much more – _illicit_ – things she had not long finished doing with Balthier, the simple intimacy of the gesture warmed her.

'I don't know. He said I was not to contact him while I was here, and that he would give me a month to talk to you.' Penelo mumbled belatedly realising that Balthier had asked her a question.

'As I thought,' Balthier murmured pleased, he tugged lightly on the thick mane of her hair so that her head went back and her neck was bowed as he leaned into give her a quick, deliciously fast, passion nick on her throat with his teeth. Penelo almost jumped out of her skin as her heart rocketed into her mouth.

'So our Lord Larsa has no reason to act for at least another two and half, to three, weeks? Hmm, that is too long, time to speed things up I think.'

Penelo turned slowly as he released her hair, so she could look over her shoulder to see his face. He gave her a dazzling wolfish grin and she was not in the least reassured to see it.

'So what better way is there to force our cautious junior emperor to act than to threaten the liberty of his darling beloved Penelo, hmm; yes I think this could solve not just one problem but two.'

He smiled slyly, all the while carefully brushing Penelo's long hair as she sat waiting with trepidation for his next words and knowing whatever he was plotting was not going to be good.

'The pirates want a share of the million, well, I shall just have lay hands on another million then.'

'I'm not Larsa beloved,' Penelo snapped with unnecessary vehemence, interrupting his self congratulatory chuckle. She did not like the direction this conversation was going in; she was certainly not about to let him use her in his battle against Larsa.

Balthier laid aside the brush and shifted on the bed so that he could pull her in against his chest, running trailing his hands down her arms as he purred in her ear.

'Come now, dearest, you underestimate your allure surely?' she shivered as his breath whispered over her neck a moment before he returned to the mark he had left on her throat with his teeth, mouthing it gently and she knew, absolutely, that in a few hours there would be a perfect, bright red love bite to show for it.

'I had heard tell, you see, that as well as Judge Magisters and senators, you also received a rather earnest, if somewhat inappropriate, marriage proposal from Larsa himself.' Balthier's purred in butter rich, light as air tones that nevertheless held a darker undercurrent.

Penelo, who had been melting into the smooth honey of his voice, melodious and sweet even when it whispered poison into her ear, jerked away from him and off the bed, turning to stare at him aghast; no one was supposed to know about that and even she had been sworn to secrecy.

'I don't know what you mean.' She told him staunchly but her momentary shock had already given her away. Balthier smiled silkily and cruelly, dark eyes hard and shuttered; his true thoughts and feelings hidden away behind ever present smirk.

He reclined back against the bed on his elbows and continued to smile silkily, as he raised one hand to examine his cuff with all appearance of one who does not care a whit that his lover (if she could be so presumptious to call herself that) has received a marriage proposal from another man. In fact Balthier sounded gloatingly pleased about it.

'That must have been a quite excruciatingly awkward conversation,' he murmured pleasantly, 'having to spurn the affections of a hormonally charged fifteen year old, who just happens to be commander of one of the most powerful empires in all Ivalice. Tsk-tsk, dear heart, you have a most dangerous way of attracting men to you.'

Penelo just stared at him, 'Why are you being so vicious?'

She demanded in strong voice and dry eyed. She had seen Balthier be cruel before, more than once, and she had witnessed his mercurial mood changes from sweetness to vitriol just as often. She knew that there had to be a reason, even if it wasn't a very good one.

'Because I am fast running out of other options,' he told her letting the mask of jovial menace slip and once more looking as tired and strained as he had when he had entered the laundry room earlier today.

Sighing he beckoned for her to come back to the bed and into his arms. Penelo hesitated, by no means sure she wanted to keep being passive recipient of his strange and erratic changes in demeanour.

'Come, sit, it's about time I explained a few things to you.' He said and she relented coming to lie on the bed beside him, head pillowed on his shoulder. Balthier waved a hand in an airy gesture as he gazed up at the ceiling.

'That million Gil I stole did not come from the Archadian Mint, but instead was meant as a personal gift from the Solidor private fortune to Larsa's good friend, but international rival, Al-Cid Margrace.'

Balthier turned to face her, 'Can you imagine the scandal if the senate found out that Larsa had been sending a scion of Archadia's long time enemy and political rival, House Margrace, one million Gil?'

Penelo could imagine it; although technically at peace now, Archadia and Rozzaria had been so long either at war or planning to go to war with each other that tolerance and trust of Rozzaria was still very low in Archadia and vice versa.

Still she frowned in confusion, 'I don't understand, why was Larsa sending Gil to Al-Cid in the first place, and why did he send it through Dalmasca?'

Balthier sighed, 'The million Gil of Solidor funds was placed within a cargo hold of goods, Gil and various reparations, that Archadia has been paying Dalmasca on a quarterly basis since the liberation, as part of the ceasefire agreement.'

Penelo's eyes widened. She knew about the reparations of course but the idea that Balthier had been stealing...

He gave her a rather put out look recognising the dawning appalled suspicion that caused her to stiffen in his arms.

'What do you take me for? I don't steal medicine and grain from the starving – there's no profit in it.'

He shook his head and flexed the fingers of his right hand over in the air as he continued, still addressing the ceiling more than her. 'No, when I downed the galleon I made sure that everything in the cargo hold was safe and unharmed; Dalmasca received her reparations settlement as expected. Larsa's Gil, which Ashe had agreed to pass onto her betrothed Al-Cid, was my only object and I took not one shiny coin more than that.'

'Ashe knew about the Gil?' Penelo found it hard to believe that Dalmasca's Queen would agree to such a thing. Even though, thinking about it, Penelo was not exactly sure what crime was being committed here and why Ashe knowing about the secret Gil was bad; except it must be because Balthier certainly seemed to view it as such.

Balthier scoffed humourlessly, 'Oh, they are all up to their necks in it; though I concede Ashe might not realise precisely what her future husband had intended to do with that Gil. I find it hard to believe she would condone the invasion of another sovereign country as a wedding present.'

'What? Invade...Balthier what is going on?' she jerked away from his so fast her head smacked into the bed spread and made the springs bounce.

'Careful, now my girl,' he murmured, though he looked amused, 'shame to rattle your pretty brains out before I've had you write a little note to our dear friend Larsa, hmm.'

Penelo sat up on the bed and looked narrowly down on him,'I won't help you hurt Larsa. No matter what you say I won't believe he would ever do anything so bad as illegally invade another country.'

'Oh, no, of course not,' Balthier agreed blithely cheerful as he too sat up on the bed. 'He's just providing the funds for the little incursion into Bervenia; Rozzaria will fight the battle.'

Snatching up her hand as if she was a child, Balthier got off the bed and all but pulled her off too.

'Bervenia? Balthier let go...what are you doing; what is all this about Bervenia?' she struggled against him at first, instinctively, as he pulled her across the room but stopped when it seemed he only wanted to place her at his desk and in his chair.

'Yes Bervenia; this is all about Bervenia, and her recently discovered underground magicite deposits.'

Balthier's words, hale and hearty, wrapped around her brain in a confusing swirl of silky, cynical amusement as he pushed her down onto the chair before his writing desk and pushed a pen into her hands all in one dizzyingly fast movement.

Crouching low so he could clasp her shoulders around the back of the chair, Balthier kissed the top of her head and then whispered in her ear. 'I want you to write to Larsa, personally, as you have done before, and tell him that I am holding you hostage against your will.'

Penelo tried to turn around in the chair to look at him, but Balthier held her head immobile with a hand either side of her temple.

'Explain to him,' he continued once she was still, 'that while you are not harmed or ill-treated you have found me to be quite unlike myself and you do not doubt that if forced I will carry out my threat of giving you to the care of some of my less gentlemanly pirate compeers – unless of course, he is prepared to raise one million Gil for your safe return.'

'Balthier!'

She could not turn to stare at him, or lash out at him or do any of the things she might want to do, as he let go of her abruptly and was across the room before she could turn in the chair.

He was already opening the door, 'Tell him he has a week, in which time you will write again to tell him how and where to deposit the Gil.'

'Why are you doing this to me?' Penelo asked, though she wondered why she bothered. The answer was obvious; he did it because she let him.

'Because there are already a thousand people dead in Bervenia; dead because Dalmasca has no magicite of her own, and the family Margrace want to buy their way into the Dynast line by stealing another country's wealth and offering it as a wedding bribe to Ashe.' He told her in an almost singsong lilting voice that did not match the seriousness of his expression at all.

'My father annihilated an entire country for the price of one shiny stone.' He told her quietly, 'I was raised in the bosom of an empire that thought nothing of crushing nations to steal their magicite, or their grazing lands, to feed Archadian greed. I will not watch that happen again.'

'A thousand dead?' she whispered and Balthier walked back into the room and held out a neatly folded piece of paper. 'I dare say you won't believe me, but maybe you'll believe Vaan, hmm?' he waved a hand at the first drawer of the desk she sat at, 'You'll find the decryption code in the blue notebook inside that drawer.'

He walked to the door and looked back at her with quiet, but resolute, eyes and addressed her with the same cheerful indifference she had come to recognise hid all his true feelings.

'You can think me a villain if you want, Penelo, and I dare say I deserve it, but if I must betray your trust to stop a war, then gods help me, I'll do it.'

Then he was gone, leaving Penelo with a crumpled note and an empty sheet of paper on the desk before her. Blinking back tears of utter confusion, Penelo sought out the decryption notebook; at least, if nothing else, she might finally have proof with it, one way or the other, to the question of Balthier's good or bad intentions.


	5. Chapter 5

_To see is not always to believe; to know is not always to agree. I will always chose to dream of castles in the sky. _

It was one of his most jealously guarded secrets (one of many, many secrets that wrapped about his heart in an impenetrable barrier of self-deception and denial) but the boy who would eventually grow up into the man who called himself Balthier, had once (for seven intensely devout months) held an aspiration to join the Kiltia priesthood.

Religion had little place within Archadian high society and even less within the household Bunansa, but he who grew into Balthier had once been captivated by the candlelight radiance, the swooning sweetness of the incense, and the hushed majesty of intangible faith.

It had been theatre of the greatest kind, the ultimate suspension of disbelief; to believe in something unseen, unfelt, unheard, that nevertheless knew and controlled all aspects of life.

Believing in something that could not be defined, could not be dissected and torn apart into its constituent pieces upon the sterile scalpels of intellect had appealed enormously to the precocious son of Archades greatest living scientific genius.

For those brief months before his father stepped in and neatly, definitively, destroyed his belief in the divine, the profane, and everything in between, the little boy who would turn into Balthier, had spent long, happy hours curled in a pew in the only Kiltia temple in Archades, watching the candles burn down.

All those little candles, their light hazy and flickering in the thick miasma of incense hanging in the air, had been beautiful to the child Balthier used to be. Tiny little haloes of golden light that danced in the faintest breeze as some furtive worshipper or another snuck into the temple to show their devotion in secret away from the dismissive eyes of the rest of the capital.

The child he had been had never been completely convinced of the existence of Faram, but even then his quick mind had seized on the power behind the alabaster statue of a god of dubious credibility, to the strength and the release such belief offered the people who bent a knee to a statue carved of cold stone.

To believe in something implausible, unattainable, and completely unreachable was to set yourself free from the everyday pressures, strains, and fears of reality. Religion was theatre, it was art and escapism; it was everything a lonely little boy needed to feel a little less lost and adrift in a place he already knew he did not belong.

Years went by and the child became the man called Balthier and he no longer looked for companionship among gods he knew did not exist (and if they did, they were no doubt corrupt parasites akin to the Occuria) but he never forgot those candles; a tiered river of warm light dancing in scented air.

Lying sleepless (as usual) in his bed and listening to Penelo's soft breathing beside him, Balthier lifted a lock of her hair between his fingers and mused that the hue and colour reminded him strongly of the gold of those holy candles.

This thought led to the sort of dreaming musing that led him to ponder what she would look like bathed and sheathed only in candle light, and what a magnificent painting that could make.

Almost two days had passed since Penelo had written the ransom note, word for word, as he had required of her. Although she had said nothing against the necessity of the duplicity she had looked so wretchedly sad thereafter that Balthier, who knew he was better off not muddying the emotional waters anymore than he had already, nevertheless felt almost compelled to seduce the girl into his bed simply to evoke a smile from her.

Hmm, yes and if he could convince himself he had lured the girl into his bed for her benefit alone he was the greatest liar to ever blight the face of Ivalice.

Balthier had indulged himself and his passions with a number of women (not as many as people might deign to suggest in gossip however – he had high standards) and usually he had pursued, wooed, seduced, bedded, bedded some more, and then walked away from the woman in question in no more than the space of three months, usually considerably less.

Penelo had broken the mould not only because, in many ways, the only reason he had 'bedded' her at all was because she had invaded his very bed while he languished in drugged slumber and that, when he woke up, he had not really had the wit to resist the physical imperatives that plagued a young, hot blooded man in his prime.

Penelo had also broken the mould because even after he had tasted of her bounty, wandered off for pastures new and so on, he had ended up going back with appetite undiminished.

For the six months after the Lemures debacle when he had been fairly consistently (and for the most part almost exclusively) bedding Penelo (which in itself was something of a record) he had waited to grow bored with her and been quite shocked when he hadn't.

He certainly _should_ have grown bored with her, Balthier thought, as he watched her pretty face flicker and contort and shift with the ebb and flow of her dreams; watching the passage of her delight and her fear in the crinkle of her nose or the twisting of her lips, the bunching of her brow, and the quiver of the fingers that rested just under her chin in an almost scholarly pose of deep thought.

This golden girl before him lacked the sophistication, the sharp wit, the cynical self-sufficiency, of the women he usually found himself drawn too; she even lacked the steely determination to see her will fulfilled that Queen Ashe possessed.

Also, interestingly, he had always thought himself to be much more attracted to older women (as his choice of business partner might allude too) and not green girls, as Penelo had been, and in many ways, still was today.

It occurred to him, as Penelo pursed her lips and let out an almost frustrated sigh, batting at something in her sleep with a somnambulant hand, that Penelo was like the candles in the temple when he was a boy. She held the same power to calm him and fascinate him that they had done.

It was not a reassuring epiphany and caused him to abruptly roll out of the bed and onto his feet, pulling on clothes without any of his usual care or precision. Penelo, orphaned shop-girl turned show-girl from Dalmasca, already held far too much power over him for his liking without his treacherous mind equating deifying her, for the gods own sake.

She was a comely girl who was as limber and flexible in bed as she was in dance, and she was politically useful to him, that was all. Sooner or later he would find another woman with which to exorcise the itch in his britches. It was just proximity and a dangerous sense of quasi-understanding that made Penelo a more alluring object than any other woman in his acquaintance at the present time.

Accepting that he was not likely to get any more sleep tonight Balthier hurriedly buttoned his shirt shoved his feet into his boots (he hated going anywhere bare foot) and departed the bedroom for the solitude he needed to indulge in vast qualities of brooding…..who knows he might find some candles lying about somewhere.

* * *

_Like moths to open flames we cluster about our dreams; we want them, and we fight for them, and all we get is burned._

Penelo woke up with a start and wasn't sure why she had woken. The bed was empty aside from herself. Reaching across she pressed her hand into the pillow and found it cold; wherever Balthier had gone he had left some time ago.

Penelo sat up in bed and hesitated over what to do. Should she go back to sleep, sneak into her own room, or go and look for him? The second and third options did not seem like good choices to her. She would either appear much as a woman of Gil, dismissed from the client's bed, or, in the latter option, appear horribly needy and clingy, which Balthier would not hesitate to point out. Of course the first choice wasn't an option now she was awake; her brain was buzzing and fizzing with thoughts regarding Balthier's disappearance.

In and of itself that was rather a damning indictment of just how much control the sky pirate had over her and it made Penelo a little sad because she knew he did not feel the same...how could he when she was just plain old Penelo and he could have anyone he wanted?

Then again if he could have anyone how come it was Penelo he chose; didn't that mean something?

Should she follow him in case he happened to be counting the stolen Gil and she could seize it; but then again she couldn't really claim that the Gil had ever been her true object.

Did she worry about what he was doing in the middle of the night and whether she should stop him from doing something morally dubious? Of course, in reality, Penelo was not sure anyone (except maybe Fran) could stop Balthier from doing anything if he really had his mind set on it.

Around and around her thoughts went, spinning like a whirlwind inside her brain.

In the end Penelo kicked off the light sheets and pulled on the long white cotton nightgown that Reddas had given her four years ago and which she had kept all this time in pristine condition. It might be a terribly needy thing to do, and hardly appropriate for a young woman who was trying to stand on her own two feet, but she did not care. Penelo had made up her mind (not that there had really been any question over what she would do) and went in search of Balthier.

She found him rather easily; it was hardly any challenge at all. She might even have thought he wanted her to find him.

Padding down the stairs in her bare feet she had seen an odd, rippling, golden light coming from under the closed door of Reddas' former study. It was the only light in the silent manse. The only colour in a night swathed in grey and silver and black liquid shadow and the whisper of the ocean.

Approaching the door she noticed that it was not fully closed, but left just fractionally ajar. No sound came from within the room but the scent of smoke and burning wax hung heavy beyond the slim crack between the door and the doorframe.

She pushed the door very gently open just enough to poke her head around it; it was possible after all that it wasn't Balthier but Rikken or Elza in the room and in which case she did not want to intrude.

As it turned out it wasn't one of the Balfonheim pirates but she still wondered if she was intruding. Balthier was sitting in Reddas' old chair, the big wingback chair with the burgundy leather upholstery and the Gryphon carved wooden chair legs. He had his chin propped up on one drawn up knee but the remarkable thing about the scene was the candles.

There had to be two dozen candles arrayed across the large expanse of Reddas' mahogany desk and bathing the room in thread, smoky golden light.

Some of the candles were large, sturdy and made of tallow, which smelled strongly of burning fat and left a greasy smoke in the air, others were delicate, patterned beeswax candles and some were as long as her forearm and almost as wide, while others were smaller and more delicate than her little fingers.

The whole room was bathed in a warm suffice golden glow as Balthier stared fixedly into the bank of candles like a man trying to divine the meaning of life in those dancing, bobbing flames.

Penelo slipped through the door and pressed it closed behind her back. The tiny draught from that movement sent the candles twisting, their little flames bending and then bouncing back to reach for the ceiling once again.

Balthier's eyes did not so much as quiver at her entrance. The sharp, almost hawkish cast of his features was all the more pronounced as the candlelight and the shadow threw every sharp angle into harsh relief. His dark eyes seemed to repel the bright dancing light of the candles like the eyes of an animal more used to dark places.

Penelo did not know whether she dared breach the sanctity of the candlelight and approach him; that happy smoky brilliance made him seem harsh and forbidding, the long, straight line of his nose a blade of shadow, his chin too pointed, cheekbones too pronounced and skin too white.

'You can come closer; I'm not in the mood to bite you right now.'

She jumped as he spoke, his expression not shifting one iota as he continued to watch the candles dance. Penelo scuttled across the room, skirting the large desk and its serried rows of candles and hesitating at his shoulder, one hand curling over the carven frame of the chair.

'I woke up and you were gone.' She told him a little pathetically.

'So you came to find me?' he asked without any inflection in his voice at all. Penelo glanced at him but he was still staring at the candles.

'Yes,' she admitted, though in truth he hadn't needed her confirmation. 'I know that you don't sleep well,' she added nervously into the silence, 'but I thought you might want company.'

She began to twist her hands together in the long folds of her nightgown awkwardly, 'I'll leave you be if you want.'

It was as though her nervous chatter broke some manner of spell, a pall of almost quiet solemnity, that Penelo could almost taste on her tongue; smoke, ash, regret. Balthier turned his head, his usual smirk seeming less caustic and a little more lopsided and tired.

'Now why would I want that?' he asked her and his voice was warm and affectionate and for the briefest of seconds it seemed to Penelo that she was looking into the face of the man without his usual mask. She could almost believe he truly valued her company, cared for her, wanted her by him, and then the spell of the candles stole him away again and he looked from her back to that eerie wavering glow.

'You must think me quite peculiar,' he said musingly, 'I dare say if I were you I would think me odd indeed.'

Penelo found herself unable to look at him at that; her thoughts and feelings colliding. She did not think him odd, or peculiar, though he most certainly wasn't like anyone else she had ever met. Looking into all those candles she wondered, with all the regrets he must have to chose from, why it was he seemed so very wistfully sad gazing into the candle flame?

'I don't think you're odd.' She said quietly and had to fight the urge to wave a hand before her face against the smoke and the waxy smell that curled into her nostrils and clogged her brain.

'Hmm, then what are your thoughts on me?'

He must have sensed her discomfort, or simply seen the watery sheen in her eyes from the smoke, because he leaned forward and blew out the largest, and smokiest, of the tallow candles. Snaking an arm about her waist he shifted in the chair so she could sit in his lap.

Penelo hesitated to answer his question, playing for time by fidgeting in his lap and smoothing the skirt of her nightgown, because she was not sure how to do so. She stared at the candles for a moment and he seemed content enough to let her ponder while he leaned his head back in the chair and closed his eyes. Turning back to watch him she noted that his eyelashes looked longer and darker against his cheeks in the wavering light of the candles.

'I don't think you're candlelight.' She said abruptly, the idea simply coming to her from nowhere, and the strange statement caused him to open his eyes and tilt his head down again to look at her with crookedly raised brow.

'Hmm?'

Penelo reached out to press just the pad of her thumb to his brow at the hairline. Balthier's brow bunched in question and Penelo dragged her thumb down his forehead to the bridge of his nose.

'You're not candlelight; it's too dim and weak. Candlelight doesn't banish shadow it embraces the dark.'

She said softly thinking out her thought process as she spoke. Her thumb rubbed against the twitching of his brows trying to meet in a frown. She stroked her thumb down the straight point of his nose; that long proud nose designed for looking haughtily down on things.

Balthier's hands curved around her waist and shifted to her upper thighs rearranging her position until she straddled him. Penelo had a feeling he was going to say something and she brushed the pad of her thumb over his lips, silencing him.

'I think….' Penelo said quietly, 'I think that you _are_ shadow. Always there, even in the blazing heat of the desert, and never diminished by the light, but instead, defined by it; that's what you are Balthier.'

He regarded her thoughtfully as Penelo let her hand drop, feeling oddly sad because she had realised something else finally. She had realised what she was to him as she tried to work out why she was here, with him, and why she did not want to be anywhere else, even though she knew that she would never be to him, what he was to her.

'I'm the candle.'

She whispered; the lonely dwindling phantom flame, a little spark in a world of rich, deep, dark and luscious shadow. She was dim and weak and tremulous, an incongruity in all that soft, warm, all encompassing, all knowing, darkness.

Balthier chuckled and curved a hand around the back of her head, 'Come now, darling, you underestimate yourself.' He smiled and it was not jaded or cold. It was a smile a man gave his sweetheart. It was, Penelo dared to think, a smile that said _yes I do love you; I see you, I know you, and I chose you. _

Her breath caught in her throat and even the candle flames seemed to dim and grow still at her back as all waited for his next words; words that could cast her hopes to ash or cement them in fact.

Balthier's fingers massaged the loose flowing hair at the nape of her neck, tangling in the yellow threads and tickling the skin of her neck.

'You are no inconstant little candle and you are not a shade either.' He smiled, 'You are a beacon, and you burn very bright indeed; especially in the shadows.'

Penelo's hesitant gaze, which had been staring shyly at his half-fastened shirt because she did not dare look at his eyes now leapt to his face; she could feel heat and pride and doubtfulness wash over her as Balthier eased her towards him for a kiss with his hand still cradling the back of her skull.

It was then that the large bay window at Penelo's back across the room shattered into a thousand jagged pieces and a very angry Judge Magister burst through the ruined window frame.

Quick as a flash the incantation for Protection and Shell flew to her lips as Balthier pushed Penelo down against the chair and covered her, protected her as best he could with his body, against the rain of glass shards and the tumbling candles from the table.

'Damn you pirate does your corruption know no bounds that you despoil the virtue of an innocent girl?'

In the blinking of an eye Balthier had leapt to his feet to face the intruder and Penelo, jumping to his side instantly, had readied a fistful of Holy (the strongest spell she knew).

'What are _you_ doing here?'

Balthier demanded staring incredulously at the large man in the whorled and carven armour, the full helmet with horns and the long, black cloak. The voice that issued from within that full face grill and the carved double blades that pointed towards Balthier from feet away were very, very familiar.

'By the power vested in me by the Empire of Archadia I hereby arrest you, the sky pirate Balthier, on charges of grand larceny, sabotage with intent to harm, kidnapping, blackmail and extortion.'

Penelo, gripping Balthier's sleeve, very conscious of the fact that she was in her nightclothes and Balthier was unarmed, stared at the armour plated Judge Magister before her in astonishment.

'Basch -is that you?'


	6. Chapter 6

_Necessity is the mother of invention and inspiration the bastard child of calamity._

'Basch - is that you?'

Penelo stared at the armoured man towering before her, the guttering candlelight casting odd, moving shadows and streaks of light over the engraved breastplate and the smooth metal of the armoured greaves covering the man's thighs.

'Penelo - I am come to rescue you.' the distorted deep voice issued from within the speaking grill of the full helmet.

Penelo, holding a fistful of Balthier's sleeve in one hand quenched the quivering, silvery radiance of her Holy spell in the other and stared a little dumbfounded at Basch, hidden as he was behind his dead brother's armour.

'Rescue me?' she questioned wondering what he meant, as she was perfectly happy here in Balfonheim (in fact would have been happier without his intrusion; especially as Balthier had been in rare affectionate mood) at the same time Balthier groaned with annoyance.

'Oh for the gods own sake,' he muttered darkly shaking his head and pushing Penelo behind him slightly, blocking her with his body as if he thought Basch would make a grab for her. He looked up at the armoured man, with the twin blades lowered but held ready in both hands, and his lip curled with contempt.

'I hope that his Lordship Larsa intends to reimburse me for the damage to that window?'

He demanded boldly as Penelo tried to step up to his side once more and, was once again, checked by his body; despite his flippant address to Basch, Balthier's muscles were drawn taut and he was clearly on edge.

Basch finally removed his helmet so that he could look, deeply reproachfully, at Balthier face to face.

'I am come to arrest you,' he said in his formal, gruff tones, 'I do not wish further bloodshed between us Balthier; once we were allies, let us not become foes now.'

Penelo could not help the sudden, inexplicable, highly inappropriate, urge to giggle as she saw Balthier's brows shoot up his forehead and watched the dark spark of wicked amusement blaze in his dark gaze.

'Very well,' Balthier said smirking slyly, 'I am prepared to overlook your less than polite entrance and generously overlook the damage you have done to my window if you leave this instant.'

Penelo pressed her face into Balthier's shoulder to stifle the very naughty giggle that burbled up in her throat at Balthier's barefaced cheek. Basch, however, noticed Penelo pressing her body the length of Balthier's and his brows bunched.

'Gods damn you man; I had thought you possessed some modicum of decency. Penelo is just a girl.'

Basch's disapproval was so thick it seemed to curdle the air in the room and bit into Penelo's awareness as harshly as the chill from the ocean whistling through the shattered window. She jerked away from Balthier in shock, suddenly angry with Basch and his wrong-headed assumptions; she was _no _girl and even when she had been a girl she had known well enough her own mind and will.

Basch's words had bad effect on Balthier too. The smirk on his face deepened while at the same time growing hard and brittle, 'Oh I assure you,' he purred lasciviously, 'Penelo is no girl.'

Penelo, who had been ready to add her two-Gil worth of chastisement to Basch now looked over sharply at Balthier shocked at his rather baldy insinuation. Basch's reaction however was considerably more severe than her own.

In less than an eye blink Balthier had the points of twin blades pressed under his chin and Basch looked ready to shear the pirate's head right from his shoulders. 'You would dare impugn her further? Have you not done enough damage already, man?'

'Hmm, I see you have taken well to your brother's mantle,' Balthier drawled seemingly unconcerned that Basch had him pinned against the table with sword points to his throat, 'you are swift enough to _judge _me, after all.'

'I saw you Balthier,' Basch grunted but his hands remained steady holding the swords poised at Balthier's throat, 'you had your hands all over Penelo; have you no shame whatsoever?'

'I wasn't aware that holding a _willing _woman in one's arms was a capital offence,' Balthier replied unruffled, 'and, for that matter, since when has Balfonheim fallen under the jurisdiction of the ninth division, _your honour_?'

During this time Penelo had been inching her way through the shadows at the rooms periphery to come up behind Basch's back. The Knight turned Magister was far more interested in Balthier than he was her; Penelo intended to show him just how much of a mistake that was.

'Is it not enough for you to lead Penelo and Vaan into a life of crime, but now you must take advantage of her while she is your prisoner?'

Basch had borne Balthier down, so that he was leaning backwards over the desk, his head framed by the few still standing candles on the desk top. The position looked uncomfortable but Balthier kept the sardonic half smile on his face all the same. His eyes however had grown as sharp as flint and as cold as the tundra of Paramina Rift.

'Tell me something, Basch; has it really been so long since you had a woman that you cannot tell the difference between a willing and an unwilling one?'

Without a word Basch withdrew his blades and Balthier began to stand up only for Basch's gauntleted fist to collide with the side of his face and send Balthier sprawling over the desk and onto the floor on the other side.

* * *

_Daggers may kill me and nooses throttle me, but it is words, wielded by the masters of cruel poetry, that can cut me deep; to be killed by words is to die a long and painful death._

'Basch!'

The armoured man froze in mid step in the process of retrieving Balthier's possibly unconscious body from the other side of the desk and he began to turn to face Penelo. It was then that she hit him with the Immobilising spell and hurried over the desk to crouch by Balthier as Basch remained paralysed and staring in disbelief at her.

'Ghn,' Balthier was groggily trying to pick himself up, blood dribbling from his mouth as he raised a fumbling hand to his split lip and rolled his tongue in his mouth.

Penelo hovered over him ready to cast a cure spell if he needed it. Balthier went to withdraw his handkerchief from one of his belt pouches only to realise he wasn't wearing his belts. He glared at Basch and spat out a viscous mouthful of blood and one, broken, molar tooth.

'Is it honourable to hit an unarmed man, sir knight?'

Balthier's voice was garbled by his swelling cheek and the blood still pumping from his cut inner cheek and the hole in his gums. Penelo gripped his chin and turned his face away from his glowering contest with Basch. She whispered the cure incantation and gently slipped her finger inside his mouth to check for any more loose teeth.

Convinced that Balthier would be alright except for bruising and the loss of his back molar, Penelo stood and strode over to the inanimate Basch.

'Larsa promised me he would not arrest Balthier. He promised me he would not send anyone, even you, to Balfonheim to find him; why did Larsa lie?'

Basch's eyes widened partly in shock at Penelo's tone, crisp, sharp, unforgiving, and at her words; he could not speak however, while he remained Immobilised. Behind her back Balthier hauled himself up using the edge of the desk as an aid and woozily leaned against it, arms folded over his chest. He sighed.

'I should have considered this,' he shrugged casually when Penelo glanced back over her shoulder to him, 'young love and all that. I should have realised that Larsa would react with uncharacteristic aggression with your liberty at stake.'

Penelo felt her eyes widen, 'Oh.'

She turned back to Basch, 'I'm going to free you of the immobilising spell now, and then we're all going to sit down and talk about this like grown ups, alright?' she narrowed her eyes at both men.

Balthier did not look thrilled by the prospect but he shrugged, throwing up his hands in the habitual gesture he used when he wanted to avoid taking any responsibility for the outcome of an action.

Basch, being paralysed, couldn't say or do anything at all. Penelo whispered the Esuna Incantation and Basch sucked in a quick breath as his body relaxed and feeling returned to his muscles.

Basch stared at Penelo with his pale blue eyes, those kindly almost paternal eyes, that now looked baffled and a little hurt.

'You are complicit in this?' he asked nodding his head towards Balthier.

Penelo shook her head, 'I'm not complicit in anything. I am exactly like I said I was to Larsa. I am not on anyone's side. Larsa is my friend, Ashe is my queen, you are my friend. I just want to fix this whole mess without anyone getting hurt.'

'Too late.'

Penelo turned back to glare at Balthier who was moodily rubbing his bottom jaw. 'You're not helping Balthier.'

He shrugged once more, 'I wasn't aware I was supposed to be helping.'

Turning away from Balthier to Basch, who had been watching this exchange with narrowed eyes, Penelo sighed. 'I didn't want to write that ransom letter but Balthier didn't do anything to make me either.'

Or at least not anything of a negative nature; she didn't think Basch would appreciate seeing the love bite still not faded on her throat or hearing a recital of all the things Balthier had whispered into her ear while in bed after she had completed the letter. Things were delicate enough as it was without sending Basch into another unnecessarily protective rage.

'Then why did you write it?' Basch asked gently, though he kept shooting Balthier wary looks over her head. Penelo had the feeling that behind her back Balthier was making a nuisance of himself. He could be incredibly petulant at times.

'Because I couldn't think of a better way; Basch, do you know about the war in Bervenia?'

Behind her back she could feel Balthier grow still and then push away from the desk. Like an itching behind the eyes she could imagine him beginning to tug at his sleeve cuffs, suddenly nervous. Basch's eyes narrowed to flinty points of pale blue.

'There is no war in Bervenia.' He said defensively and Balthier laughed harshly.

Penelo looked from the two men, 'W – what do you mean?'

Balthier was smirking coldly as he remained in the shadows of the room, untouched by the light of the few still burning candles. His face was a pale, ill-defined blur in the darkness but Penelo could feel the weight of his black gaze rooted to Basch.

Basch shifted a little in his metal soled boots. 'There is unrest in the principality of Bervenia. A recent coup has dispossessed the ruling Legate family, administering the province for the Margrace family, of their place and position.' He said stiffly.

Penelo frowned, 'What does that mean?' her voice was sharp.

It was not like Basch to be cagey and ambiguous in his speech like this; he also looked exceedingly uncomfortable. Balthier's insidious dark chuckle rolled through the room.

'Translation: the Margrace cronies have been ousted by the indigenous people of Bervenia and now Al-Cid, and his innumerate siblings, are in a panic and have exhorted Larsa to provide illicit funds to help them violently suppress the rights of the natives and restore their puppet governor to power.'

Penelo turned back to Basch her eyes eloquent of her thoughts. She was quietly furious and deeply betrayed that Basch, of all people, would make excuses for an empire invading and dictating the population of a small country. It was just like Rabanastre and the Imperials all over again.

'Larsa agreed to help Al-Cid do this?' her fists curled and she faced Basch squarely. Basch looked sad and uncomfortable.

'I did not know of the funds until after the million Gil had been stolen.' He shot an unloving look over to Balthier, who lounged against the wall in the shadows, merging easily into the darkness.

Basch cleared his throat and continued after a moment, 'His lordship stated that Al-Cid had requested the funds as the Rozzarian treasury is all but bankrupted by poor harvest and drought in their territories. The Gil was to go towards finding a peaceful solution to the unrest in Bervenia.'

'Hmm, and that is why there are already over a thousand dead in Bervenia,' Came a sardonic coil of mockery from the shadows.

Basch's fists tightened into bloodless clenches and Penelo looked over her shoulder to the shadows frowning sharply, 'Balthier – _stop it_.'

She waited a moment but when he said not a word she turned back to Basch who looked at her with surprise at the fact that Balthier had seemingly shut up on her command.

She shrugged a little awkwardly. 'Basch – if you did not know about the secret Gil, why were you on the galleon when Balthier hi-jacked it? It was you who sliced Balthier's stomach, wasn't it?'

The wound she had seen still healing on Balthier's torso when she arrived in Balfonheim almost ten days ago was shallow and had never been life threatening but it had still left a permanent scar on him.

Basch sighed, 'I had requested duty on the reparations convoy so that I could make a call to the palace. Balthier was in the commission of a crime and I am beholden to uphold the law. It was not my intent to inflict lasting harm.'

He looked daggers over to Balthier who had made some noise of derision but more or less kept quiet throughout, 'It is not my fault the man wears no more than leather and brocade to protect his person.'

Basch added just a little brusquely and Penelo smiled, realising that when Basch said 'palace' he meant 'Ashe'. Basch had wanted to see Ashe once more and guarding the reparations payment had been an opportunity to do so that would not lead to people in Dalmasca questioning why an Archadian Judge Magister would make a social call to the Dalmascan queen.

Balthier pushed off the wall and stepped into the light, 'Did our dear queen know of your plans?'

He asked with such feigned mildness that both Basch and Penelo looked at him suspiciously. Penelo particularly scrutinised the deliberately expressionless face and the opaque look in his eyes. What did it matter to Balthier if Ashe had known or not? Why was that important? Suspicion, formless but cold as ice, dribbled down Penelo's spine.

'No,' Basch deigned to answer Balthier's question though his tone was deeply suspicious, 'she did not. I thought it best not to make announcement of my intention lest it arouse suspicion.' He narrowed his eyes once more, 'there are rumours abound that I am not the true Gabranth and I must take pains not to do anything to give those rumours credence.'

'Hmm,' Balthier smiled twiddling his cuffs and examining the buttons in the quavering candle light.

'Yes it would be quite the scandal if the senate, or the general populace of Archadia, discovered that a former enemy of the Empire and adherent of not just one former Imperial territory, but two, was now impersonating his brother and legislating the laws that govern honest, decent, Archadian lives.'

Balthier's face was once more cast in savage black and white lines, planes, and angles by the flickering candlelight and his smile was vindictive. Penelo did not like the snakelike glitter in his dark eyes one bit.

'Two territories?' she asked, recognising that one would be Dalmasca, when it was briefly conquered by the Archadian Empire but the other……? 'Oh! You mean Landis.'

She realised and looked sharply to Basch, who could not quite hide the flinch around his eyes at the mention of his homeland, long swallowed and devoured by Archadia's massive expansion.

'But what does that have to do with anything?'

Penelo asked genuinely puzzled. Basch looked sick and silently, stoically, furious while Balthier just looked darkly triumphant. The pirate turned those glittering dark eyes on her and they seemed to swallow the light of the wavering candles and bounce it back, harsh, bright, and without warmth.

'I told you,' Balthier murmured mildly, 'That there would be a tremendous scandal if the senate found out Larsa had been funnelling private funds to help Archadia's rival fight their wars.'

Penelo frowned but nodded; 'Yes but what does that have to do with Basch?' she asked as beside her the man in armour grew very, very still.

'Even you would not be so ruthless.' He breathed.

Balthier did not even look at Basch. Instead he kept his hypnotic, black-eyed gaze rooted to Penelo. Staring into those glittering, hard eyes Penelo could barely see a hint of the man who had told her she was a beacon in the shadows less than hour ago.

Balthier was still smiling as he continued explaining things to Penelo, 'Now, can you imagine what would happen if it was also revealed that Lord Larsa's most trusted advisor was not precisely who he claimed to be, hmm?'

There was a screech of metal on metal as Basch restrained his desire to lunge at Balthier again, 'You would see Larsa overthrown simply to further your own ends? He was once your ally.'

'He was never my ally.' Balthier said shortly, not even deigning to look at Basch as he went back to playing with his cuffs, 'And if _your_ lord is determined to arrest me, you can be sure I will sing like a bird,' he smiled coldly, 'we shall then see who has the most to fear from a jury of peers; him or me.'

* * *

_I say it is, therefore so it shall be; let my will stand in reasons stead. I am, I see, and all is what I will it be. _

Penelo was cold to the depths of her soul. 'No!' she grabbed two fistfuls of his shirt in her hands and twisted it tightly.

'I will not let you ever, ever, hurt Larsa.' She told him firmly not letting the tears prickling her eyelids fall or let her voice shake.

'I have done everything you asked me to do, but I told you, I wouldn't do anything to hurt Larsa and I won't let you either. I don't care what's at stake; Larsa does not deserve to be harmed. None of this is his fault.'

She rose on tip-toes and spoke directly to that implacable veiled gaze; the stony, arrogant countenance, the cruel smirk marring his features. She appealed to the man she knew was inside the shell before her; behind an armour as impenetrable as any Judge Magister's.

'How touching,' Balthier flicked her hands from his shirt and stepped back from her, face and eyes equally dead to her appeal, 'but, my dear, a man should shoulder the consequences of his own actions; Larsa has made his bed let him lie in it.'

'Larsa is sixteen,' she gasped outraged, furious and deeply, deeply hurt. She knew Balthier was selfish, she knew he could be appallingly indifferent to the welfare of others, especially when that welfare went counter to his needs, but she had not thought he was this cruel, this capricious.

'Did you never make any bad decisions when you were sixteen?'

She asked hopelessly expecting the words to fall on deaf ears just like the rest of her argument. Instead her exasperated question penetrated the layers of cynical disinterest to the very core of his being. She saw his eyes widen, his nostrils flair with sudden shock, and he actually recoiled a little. Penelo was dumbfounded.

Grasping at his shredded composure Balthier folded his arms across his chest and looked away, into the shadows. Penelo just stared at him frantically trying to work out what she had said that had made such impression. What had Balthier done at sixteen that he regretted so badly he grew pale at the merest suggestion of it? Behind her Basch snorted derisively.

'Larsa may have acted in poor judgement.' Basch conceded, 'but his intention was only to aid a friend and stop a crisis. Tell me Balthier, are your intentions quite so pure? Is your interest in Bervenia's freedom and the Margraces' disgrace of noble origin?'

Balthier turned back slowly to face Basch, eyes hard and deeply hostile. Penelo felt like she did not even recognise him. It was Lemures all over again, that same uncomprehending shock and horror as she had watched him destroy the aurelith and turn his gun on Vaan.

'A man does not need to be pure, Basch Fon Ronsenberg, only to be right.'

Penelo stared at Balthier and wondered if the man who had held her in his lap, kissed and caressed her, spoiled her with luxury and drawn beautiful portraits of her had ever really existed. Had it all been an act hiding the cold, hard, hateful man who stood before her?

'I'm not sure you are right, Balthier. I'm not sure you know the difference between right and wrong.'

Penelo said through chilled lips and Balthier turned impatiently towards her, for a moment anger and exasperation flickered in the dark depths of his gaze and it seemed as though he would speak, then his line of sight quivered, as if momentarily attracted to something behind her, and his expression sealed itself in cold, haughty lines.

He smiled thinly, 'Perhaps not,' he murmured in lazy, pleasant drawl, 'it matters not, for I shall not be going to gaol this eve.'

Basch hefted his blades in his hands and took a fighting stance as Penelo, sensing the palpably violence in the air and not sure who was friend and foe, lifted her hands with a dozen incantations on the tip of her tongue but no clear target.

She was trapped in the middle of two men who were determined, it seemed, to inflict violence on each other and she did not know which man, if either, she would side with.

'Are you so poisoned by your hubris that you truly believe you have a say in the matter?'

Basch pointed his right hand blade towards Balthier who was unarmed and dressed only in his shirt sleeves, and Penelo knew he had only moderate skill at casting magicks.

Her heart was in her throat and breaking as she realised that for all his bravado Balthier stood no chance of resisting if she chose to side with Basch over him. Balthier would be back in Archades, wrapped in chains, by daybreak.

Yet, Penelo felt certain, if she sided with Balthier she would be betraying Larsa, and that, she would never do.

Balthier laughed bright and cheerful and the sound hurt Penelo's ears and made her heart bleed, 'You forget, your honour, a good sky pirate never fights alone.'

* * *

_Waiting in the wings deception is always at my heels; I am adrift in a sea of half-truths and elusive prospects. I am drowning in all the things I do not know. _

Both Basch and Penelo sensed the presence behind them in the threshold of the shattered window at the same time, but it was not soon enough to avoid being hit by the sleepga spell that rolled over both their mind and body like a cloud of muscle melting, brain numbing fatigue, which hammered each of them to their knees onto the glass strewn floor.

Penelo was fighting the spell with all her might; battling to keep her eyes open when she felt the tall, dark presence crouch down before her.

'Fran, I must say I am mighty glad you see you.'

Penelo could not keep her eyes open but she was still able to hear and feel and she could feel Balthier leaning over her, gathering her into his arms, her head lolling against his chest as he carried her to the chez-longue in the far corner of the room that had avoided being quilted in glass.

'I see that I was right to come; you are attracted to trouble as the sparks fly upwards.'

Penelo strained to locate Fran in the room by the sound of her voice alone as Balthier gently laid her across the chez-longue and brushed down her nightdress so that it demurely covered her legs.

'Fran please, I prefer to say that trouble is attracted to _me_; I am a charismatic man, after all.'

Balthier's voice receded and Penelo bit the inside of her mouth in an attempt to stay alert, even as sleepy heaviness stole the volition from her limbs and kept her eyelids fastened shut.

'And Penelo; you were certain she would see our side in this.'

There was the sound of metal clanking onto the floor and the shifting of something heavy being moved across the carpeting; fuzzily Penelo realised that Balthier and Fran must be stripping Basch of his weapons and armour while he was as helpless, or possibly more so, than she was.

'Penelo does not know how to take a side to save her life; the girl wants to see the best in everything and everyone. Of course, she may not be feeling too warmly towards myself when she wakes. Threatening Larsa in her presence was perhaps not the best move.'

'Indeed? Your way with women is strange to me; oft I have cause to wonder why you profess yourself a ladies' man. Your skills lie solely in infuriating the women of your acquaintance.'

'Thank you Fran, have I told you lately how little I appreciate your candour? By the way, what of Vaan?'

'In Bervenia still, awaiting our return; the situation has worsened. Tell me, what of Ashe, has she betrayed us as you thought?'

Penelo, who had been drifting off despite her best efforts, into inky, dreamless oblivion, lulled by the steady murmurs of the two sky pirates' conversation, now found herself surging upwards almost to full consciousness. Ashe…..betrayal?

'No, turns out Basch acted of his own initiative, if you can believe such of a man so stolidly predictable, by boarding the galleon; Ashe did not know of it until after the fact.'

'Then our pact with Dalmasca's queen is still in effect?'

'I should hope so, after all the work I have put into this scheme. Larsa will not be the only one in fright for his throne if it is not, that is for sure.'

Penelo was fading fast as Balthier (and she knew his touch more completely than she had ever known any other hume) retrieved her from the chez longue and carried her in his arms. She tried to flutter open her eyes. Tried to force herself free of the cloying, dragging lethargy of the sleep spell but she could not.

As she spiralled downward into a still lake of emptiness deep in her mind, she tried to form words, tried to formulate questions. What pact; what did Ashe know about all this……..and why did Penelo feel like she had been played for nothing more than a fool all along?


	7. Chapter 7

_See no evil, hear no evil, do no evil…….but fear it always._

Penelo woke up while they were in flight. She almost expected to find herself in chains, bound at wrist and ankle with manacles and wrapped in coils of steel links but instead she woke up in one of the passenger seats of the Strahl wrapped only in a thick blanket against the draught that rattled through the cabin while in flight.

Across the aisle she saw that Basch was already awake and that he too was constrained by no more than the safety belt, though he had been stripped of his armour and weaponry (he was wearing ordinary civilian garb that actually fitted but Penelo did wonder who the pirates had taken it from). Penelo herself was dressed in practical travelling clothes with a bag at her feet, stowed under the seat before her, which she imagined contained a change of clothes and other things she might require.

She would have preferred chains; it would have suited her mood.

Fran and Balthier were in the co-pilot and pilot's seats respectively and through the porthole windows Penelo could see the dawn rising at the edge of the horizon, a band of luminous, radiant blue lighting into a point of brilliant gold; it was absolutely silent in the cabin.

'Where are we going?' Penelo was almost surprised to hear her own voice shatter the silence. Basch turned to look at her, where previously he had been staring silently at the back of the pilot's chair – his gaze burning a hole through Balthier's head.

'Bervenia.' It was Basch who answered, 'We are not far from the isle now.'

'Oh,' Penelo considered this, 'I should have guessed.'

She muttered darkly and directly in front of her Fran's right ear twitched as it rose up from above the high back of the co-pilot's chair but neither pilot nor co-pilot said a word. Penelo knew that Balthier and Fran didn't need to communicate with words, they didn't need to communicate at all in flight, moving with absolute synchronicity of purpose.

She lapsed into silence again staring blindly forward as the first rays of the sun burned through the windows and Balthier banked the Strahl starboard to avoid the glaring brilliance.

Basch reached across the aisle between the seats and squeezed her hand. 'I am sorry you have become embroiled in this,' he told her quietly, 'it is not right.'

For a moment all she could do was stare at the man. 'Shouldn't I be saying that to you?' she whispered, 'you were only caught because you came for me.'

'And you would not have needed rescue if my lord had not asked you to help.' Basch rejoined implacably, 'there is much blame to be passed about, Penelo, but none of it is yours.'

The old Knight shot a look to the back of the pilot's chair, knowing as well as Penelo did, that Fran could hear every word and Balthier likely could as well in the quiet enclosure of the cabin. The sky pirates, however, continued to ignore them both.

'Damn all they've started the festivities without us.'

Balthier's sudden explosive curses, as the Strahl dipped down from cloud cover towards the crescent moon twist of Bervenia island, separated from mainland Rozzaria by perhaps twenty miles of water to the north and ridged with volcanic mountains, made Penelo jump.

Immediately she looked out of the window to see that the island of Bervenia (not very heavily populated as it was mostly mountains and still-active volcanoes) was aflame. She could almost believe that there had been an eruption until she realised that the volcano stacks were quiet, ironically, considering that the ground below seemed strung with lines of golden flame under the pink and blue dawn sky.

'Balthier!'

Fran's voice was sharp with warning and it was long partnership that allowed him to interrupt that one warning accurately. With a jerk of the steering levers Balthier rocked the Strahl hard to the portside, almost so that the ship tipped upside down, and thus managed to avoid the strafing fire from the Rozzarian fighter airship that dropped like a vulture from the clouds.

Balthier sighed but an unmistakable relish infused his words, 'The pains of being popular. I was not expecting such a rapturous welcome.'

Penelo fumbled with her safety belt as the Strahl rose sharply in altitude making her ears pop and then nose dived several hundred feet before banking at whiplash inducing speed to starboard less than a few hundred feet from the ocean. The dangerous manoeuvre dislodged their pursuer but there were others to take its place; the skies above Bervenia swarming with Rozzarian fighter airships.

Beside her Basch closed his eyes and groaned, not so much scared as nauseated by the rocking and rolling evasive actions Balthier was taking as they hit the very centre of the knot of fighters.

The Strahl dropped low again and was skimmed over the cresting waves, the disturbed air from the Glossair engines creating a wall of foam, surf, and steam as Balthier risked a watery crash and instant breakup of the Strahl into a hundred twisted metal pieces to lead the Rozzarian fighters on a merry dance.

'Hmm, know that step do you?' Balthier laughed savagely joyous, 'Then let's see how you manage this little ditty.'

Penelo felt sure the bones in her face should break and her eyeballs fall back into her skull as the Strahl screamed up into the air vertically, twisting around and around in a corkscrew as they gained altitude so fast Penelo felt sure they should break apart into tiny fragments due to the sheer pressure.

'And around and around we go!'

Balthier almost cheered as they screamed into the clouds and he pulled the Strahl up so that they were flying upside down. Tthe only that stopped Penelo hitting the ceiling (or vomiting profusely) was the safety belt and the opposing forces of gravity, momentum and the laws of physics she did not understand.

Penelo could just see, turning her head with effort, through the window. She could see that the Strahl had flipped right over the top of the two craft pursuing them. As Balthier guided his ship downward like an arrow from the gods the two Rozzarian fighters were unable to change direction and give chase, as the Strahl dived down behind their backs.

They thundered downward, still at impossibly angle, still going so fast the pressure made it difficult for Penelo to draw breath and they were still spinning. The thick solid, cobalt expanse of deep Ocean spread out before them through the front cabin windows. They were headed straight for it.

Penelo dug her nails into the arms of the chair before her and did not close her eyes as she watched the ocean rush forward and the blood pounding in her ears hurt excruciatingly because of the changing air pressure in the cabin.

At the very last moment Balthier flipped the Strahl horizontal once more and shot forward towards the mountainous peaks of Bervenia. Penelo could only sit and watch as they rocketed forward towards the dark, jagged, smog shrouded and forbidding landscape.

She didn't even feel it when the Strahl took a direct hit to the left hand front glossair ring, primarily because they were just going too fast and also because, sitting on the right side, behind Fran, she was on the wrong side anyway.

No one could fail to notice however when Balthier sucked in a sharp breath as part of the control panel before him erupted into hot, bright sparks and smoke as a number of alarms began to beep and ring from the console.

'Damage?' he asked Fran who was tapping long claws over the console.

'Fire in the engine room; front left engine is aflame, auxiliary coup-links and left wing controls have been damaged; cutting power to affected circuits.'

As Fran issued commands remotely through the console and cut power to the damaged engine, Balthier took one hand from the steering levers and reached up for a hatch in the ceiling between the pilot and co-pilot seats. From the hatch two levers dropped down and Balthier grabbed hold of the left one.

'I'll give our admirers that much, they know where to shoot.' He conceded still sounding remarkably unconcerned.

The acrid scent of burning metal, Mist fuel, and electrical components wafted up from the back of the Strahl. Turning around Penelo could see that the corridor leading down from the cabin, past the sleeping cabins and into the engine room, was fast filling with smoke.

Fran had also noticed the smoke, rising smoothly from her chair she moved swiftly down the aisle as she did so she reached out a hand and gently clasped Penelo's shoulder as she passed, casting her a quick, emphatic, look. No words were spoken because none were needed.

As Fran disappeared through the smoke filled corridor, Penelo unbuckled the safety belt and grabbed the back of the co-pilot's chair for balance as Balthier, still using the manual wing control with one hand and steering with the other, dodged and evaded the harrying fire from the Rozzarian fighters. Penelo slipped into the seat, buckled up in Fran's chair and cast her eyes over the sensors and radar.

'Oh…..oh dear,' Penelo turned sharply from the angry read beeping lights and gauges of the Strahl to her captain, his face was smooth and expressionless as he concentrated on keeping the Strahl in the air, out of the range of fire, and flying straight with one hand doing one thing and the other doing another.

'We're going to crash, aren't we?'

Penelo asked, stretching up to close her hands around the handle-lever that manually controlled the retractable wings of the Strahl. She slipped her hands over Balthier's and tried to push his own hand away; she could do this for him. He needed both hands for steering.

Flicking his gaze swiftly to her Balthier released the handle-lever and pulled sharply on both steering bars with his hands, forcing the crippled airship upwards to regain altitude.

'Without a doubt,' he agreed mildly, 'the question is _where_ we are going to crash and whether we shall do so in a ball of flame or not; my preference is not.'

Penelo, uncomfortable, as she was forced to contort her body to reach and hold the wing lever while looking over at the console (she was only five foot two and half inches tall; Balthier was six feet and Fran at least six feet two – it was not a good fit for Penelo at all). She studied the topography screen, as best she could, for a good landing place.

'There – the vul-de-lac valley. Its flat and its not populated; we can land there.' She pointed with her free hand towards the bowl like valley displayed over the screen in a natural hollow surrounded by mountain and jagged hills. 'The only thing is we'll have to crest the mountaintops to get there,' she swallowed, 'we have altitude to do that, right?'

The Strahl banked again sharply as a line of golden strafing fire, like a perforated ribbon of flame, shot by the Strahl's snub nose.

'Altitude and the lack thereof are the least of our worries,' Balthier murmured easily, sounding blithely unconcerned. Penelo however understood that that was because all his concentration was rooted in avoiding being shot out of the sky, 'How many miles from here to the valley?'

Penelo checked the gauges, 'Sixty-two.'

She was just about to ask him if they had any hope of reaching the shore of Bervenia, let alone the valley when Fran returned. She stood in the doorway of the cabin and her expression was almost readably grave. In her hands she held strange canvas packs, which, after a second, Penelo recognised as parachutes; her stomach plummeted when she noticed that there were only two.

'We should never have sold the spare parachutes for the price of the silk.'

Fran chastised her partner as she walked up through the aisle, 'I have sealed off the engine room behind the fire doors. You still have the main aft engine; use it well while we have it.'

Balthier glanced over his shoulder and flashed Fran a charming, unconcerned smile. 'Strap yourself into one parachute; I'm sure our dear former captain will not mind escorting Penelo landward.'

'What about you?' Penelo demanded as Basch rose to his feet (the man having the sense to keep quiet throughout the drama as he could not do anything to assist during the fight being the only of them who could not fly).

Balthier was still pushing the Strahl higher, faster, and more strenuously than was strictly wise, headed for the valley they would never reach. There were now at last four Rozzarian fighters on their tail.

He smiled thinly, rakishly, as he guided his wailing, burning craft through the air, 'The captain goes down with his ship.'

Penelo opened her mouth but Fran's hand closing around her upper arm silenced her. She half rose and was half pulled to her feet and found the parachute (heavier than she had imagined) pushed into her hands. Basch, she saw, was already strapping himself into the other. Penelo stared from Basch to the only remaining parachute in her arms and then to Fran and Balthier.

'Now, now Fran, this is not the time for insubordination.' Balthier murmured his voice holding some soft undertone of emotion Penelo did not understand as Fran peeled Penelo's hand from the wing lever and positioned her body so that Penelo was wedged away from the co-pilot's chair and Fran could slip into it.

'It is not insubordination; the path you walk is mine and ours together. Is that not our agreement?' Fran's voice was infused with a current of warmth, affection, companionship, that went far beyond any form of romantic love; Penelo felt just the faintest twinge of jealousy and savagely suppressed it – this was not the time or the place.

The Strahl had breached the shores of Bervenia and was streaking towards the tiered rises of jagged toothed foothills, even so Penelo could tell the ship was losing altitude, it would never be able to crest the rise of the mountains to reach the valley. The Strahl was shuddering with the effort to stay aloft and it was growing intolerably hot, due to the fire in the engine room.

Basch reached for Penelo and began to efficiently pull her into the parachute, which weighed her down so she could barely move. She felt weak and numb; this was worse than Bahamut because then at least she had not known what would happen.

'But….'

'Fran show our guests the door, would you? I see a nice spot for a drop off.' Balthier interjected, his unruffled, melodious voice drowning out Penelo's stammered exclamation.

Penelo was almost manhandled out of the cabin by Basch on one side and Fran on the other.

'If we jump the Rozzarians will shoot at our parachutes.'

Basch pointed out with the grim calm that only a life long soldier can attain, as they moved through the smoke blackened corridor of the Strahl towards the entrance hatch.

'Balthier will wait until the fighters are in formation behind the Strahl and then blow out the aft engine. The discharge of Mist fuel will ignite the air; if it does not destroy our pursuers it will at least cover your descent.'

Fran explained succinctly as she checked to make sure both Basch and Penelo were secure in the parachutes.

Penelo reached out and grasped Fran's hand, 'Fran…' there were tears standing in her eyes and Fran actually deigned to smile gently as she quietly detached herself from Penelo's shaking fingers and began to open the hatch. 'Fran if the aft engine is blown…'

Penelo felt sick to the depths of her soul as the Strahl rocked and shook in the air, buffeted by the winds and shrieking like a wild creature in agony as she tried to stay aloft just a little longer. Penelo turned her gaze back to the main cabin where Balthier was once again controlling the wings while steering one handed.

Even over the roar of air as the hatch opened and the rippling metallic sounds of an airship in pain, Penelo could hear Balthier murmuring soothingly to his beloved airship.

'Come, come, Strahl my girl, is that any way for a lady to behave, hmm?'

If the aft engine blew out then it would likely take most of the back of the Strahl with it, and even if the Strahl stayed in tact there would be no more fuel, and no engines to keep the Strahl going. The airship would simply drop out of the sky. It was suicide to do such a thing – and Balthier, of course, knew that.

Through the open hatch Penelo could see a belt of green pine trees zipping by below and then the beginnings of a field of yellow corn, or barley (she could not tell – and did not know much about arable anyway). Choking on dread she realised that this was the 'nice spot for a drop off'.

'No!' she tried to turn about and force her way back into the cabin and it was for that reason that she saw that Balthier had risen…..that he had actually left the pilot's chair…. and, moving with shocking speed and stealth, had come up behind Fran, whispering the incantation to a spell Penelo recognised.

An immobilisation spell.

Fran tried to turn, sensing his presence behind her, her lips moved to begin the counter spell but Balthier (for once) was the quicker caster and he laid first an immobilisation and then a silence spell on his partner. Fran rocked on her heels as she was stricken helpless and mute.

'Basch can you take Fran in your arms?' Balthier asked his voice sharp with immediacy.

Basch answered by moving to take Fran's inert (but pliable) form in his arms, unbuckling some of the straps on the parachute and lengthening them so he could fasten them about himself and Fran. Balthier had already returned to the pilot's chair and snapped the Strahl out of autopilot.

Penelo had a split second to see everything at once; she saw the look of helpless fear in Fran's eyes. She felt the vice-like grip Basch had on her forearm as he pulled her towards the sucking vacuum of the entrance hatch. She heard the thunderous roar of the wind clawing at her body and she saw Balthier slam his hand down on the control panel; igniting the aft engine.

'Jump!'

Balthier's voice was almost swallowed in the tumult as the Strahl's last engine discharged all its fuel and Mist into the air and it instantly erupted into liquid flame. Then she was falling through the sky, without being conscious of having jumped at all.

She was falling backwards through time, or at least that's what it felt like, as the Strahl, screaming downwards like a blazing comet, arced across the sky above her and a rain of flaming debris (the remains of the Rozzarian pursuit crafts) fell all around her.

All she could hear was the screaming of the wind (which sounded like the shrieking of a woman watching the only lover she had ever known plummet to the ground in flames) and she fumbled for the rip cord on her parachute without really thinking too much about her own precarious state.

She was jerked out of freefall by the parachute opening and for a moment she simply dangled in midair. Then, as the wind turned her, she could see Basch and Fran floating not too far away. Then monstrously, dreadfully, she saw the Strahl, miles ahead of them, brilliant and beautiful, trailing a train of fire like a falling sun, racing towards a narrow cleft between the needle sharp points of the volcanic foothills.

Penelo had never been a coward; even when the Strahl's right wing was sheared off by the rocks, even when the Strahl disappeared from view, skidding on its belly across the bottom of the narrow gulley, creating a river of flame in its wake, she did not close her eyes.

The Strahl crashed and Penelo watched it all while the howling wind threw her tears to the four corners of Ivalice.


	8. Chapter 8

_Hope for the best but plan for the worst – all the while living for the moment and dreaming of tomorrow; no wonder all we do is spin in circles. _

There are some things a person can only think about while falling at steady, but controlled, speed towards the ground. Sometimes a person has to have their feet far, far off the ground in order to see what is really there and not what they think they have seen.

On the one hand, Penelo considered, as she was buffeted about my the wind up high, swinging slightly from side to side under the canopy of her parachute, she had just witnessed the Strahl and her captain crash in a blazing ball of fire. On the other hand it was Balthier who had supposedly died and this was a man who made a habit of confounding expectation.

To blow out the aft engines was suicide; Penelo remembered thinking that even as he did it. Now, looking over the hazy early morning sunshine, Penelo watched the smoke from the crash reach upwards towards the powder blue sky and found herself pondering, what was she really seeing?

The Strahl, a burned out pile of metal and broken dreams?…..or merely an airship, crashed almost artfully in an enclosed gulley with a great deal of dense foliage a person (or a wily, monstrously devious sky pirate) could hide in when the Rozzarians came picking through the wreckage?

As her suspicions mounted and the ground, a swaying field of six foot tall heads of wheat, rushed up to greet her and Penelo's body braced for impact, she found herself recalling a conversation she had once had with Balthier during the halcyon days' when he did not lie to her with every syllable.

She and Vaan had caught up with Balthier and Fran (and been allowed to do so) out on the Ozmone Plains somewhere close to Golmore (but not too close). Balthier and Fran had been re-ftting the Strahl with a new front glossair ring (acquired from another airship that, according to Balthier 'was not putting the technology to best use').

Penelo remembered that she had been shocked to see how easy it was for the two senior pirates and Nono to dismantle the Strahl, piece by piece, and then re-assemble her.

'The old girl is a mongrel, my dear.' Balthier had told her with a careless smile thrown to her as he patted the detached right wing affectionately.

'I saved my girl from the scrap heap, but underneath the gilt and the paint, she's still not much more than scrap made good, which is a damn sight better than most airships these days. Those are headed for the scrap heap, while my girl rises above it.'

'But….what does that mean?' Penelo had asked at the time, almost scandalised by the notion that Balthier would call his airship a 'mongrel'.

Balthier had smiled slyly and beckoned her to him with a quick incline of his head, the sunlight of the plain catching like quicksilver on his ear-ring. He had snaked his arm around her waist when she had gone to him and gestured with his free hand towards the partially dismantled airship.

'When you think of the Strahl, sweetheart, what do you think of first, hmm? The reticulated wings, the retractable dorsal rudders just above the front glossair rings….or a rather elaborately decorated small craft with pretty fretwork?'

Penelo barely knew what dorsal rudders were, or how to recognise them on the Strahl, 'I think of the paintwork,' she had answered carefully, slowly, 'because that is what anyone sees, even people who don't know anything about airships.'

Balthier had smiled down on her, pleased, and squeezed her side (which had pleased Penelo – who at the time had still been new to a man's affections).

'Precisely.'

He had led her over to one of the detached wings, resting like the wing of a huge moth on the grass a few feet from the body of the Strahl. Balthier had let go of her then for a moment to crouch down and idly play his fingers over the wingtip, his expression deviously proud.

'These wings are unique. The Strahl is an old girl and ships like her simply are not made anymore. However airships with retractable wings that look like the Strahl are numerous.'

Penelo had stepped forward and touched the wing herself. The whole wing was enormous, and she only realised it now that it was a part from the rest of the Strahl. Crouching down beside Balthier she played her own hands over the wing.

'So,' she had said thinking hard because she could feel the weight of Balthier's watchful, expectant eyes on her, 'if you had a ship with retractable wings and you painted it like the Strahl……or used some of the bits of decoration from the Strahl…..'

She had turned to face Balthier, puzzled by his slow, pleased smile. Why would he want to fly a pretend Strahl? Why would he tell her this; what was it in his eyes that seemed so intent almost as if he was trying to tell her something terribly important without saying a word?

Balthier had raised a hand to stroke her cheek and let his palm rest there Penelo, as responsive to his touch as a flower to the sun, had closed her eyes and leaned into his hand.

'Now, think hard sweetheart,' Balthier had murmured, 'what do you think about first, when you think of me, hmm?'

Penelo's eyes opened and she had stared at him blankly for a moment, 'What do you mean?'

The truth had been that her thoughts of him were swallowed up with the sensory memory of his dancing, deft fingers gliding over her skin. His lips against her ear when he whispered things to her in the dark velvet of the night that she did not understand but which nevertheless made her shiver deliciously.

He was to her a confusion of sensation; the melodious mockery of his voice, the play of lean muscle moving under fine pale skin against the run of her nervous palms, the glitter of ostentatious jewellery and the rush of adrenalin within her veins at the thought that such a man would ever deign to lie with her.

'Your white shirt and your vest,' she had answered, afraid of admitting the truth, 'and your ear-rings and your accent. Those are the things I think of first.' She had told him when in truth that was only a fraction of what he was to her and it did not touch the fascinating, almost frightening, riddle that was his mind and soul.

In her memory Penelo could clearly recall the gleam of triumph in his dark, shuttered eyes as he had leaned towards her and kissed her slowly, almost languidly until she whimpered and clutched at his shirt sleeve wanting all the kiss promised but denied her during the daylight hours. It had been only weeks since Lemures – weeks since she had learned what it was to really be someone's 'sweetheart' - and Penelo was like a child let loose in a confectioners store – a glutton for sensation sweet and illicit.

'Good,' he had whispered in her ear, 'for that is how a sky pirate survives; hiding the very truth of his being behind layer upon layer of lies.'

……_.hiding truth behind lies….or survival behind the performance of suicide?_

……_._Penelo landed in the field with a bone jarring bump that dislodged her mind firmly from bittersweet memory. Immediately she struggled to wriggle free of the parachutes harness and under the wide blanket of silk coating the stalks of wheat.

Penelo would be the first to recognise that she did not really know Balthier; that was obvious considering her present circumstances, but she dared to claim that she knew him better than most. Aside from Fran she and Vaan had been allowed to learn more about and _from _Balthier than anyone.

For example Penelo knew that he and Fran had faked their own deaths on the Bahamut on purpose (though Fran's injuries had been accidental - and Balthier had approached guilt whenever they were mentioned). He and Fran had known exactly how to crash the Bahamut and disappear in the confusion; they had almost planned to do so.

Penelo decided that there would be a lot of confusion at the sight of a shot down airship; the Rozzarians would not know who had escaped before the crash and who had not – it would be easy for a lone man to escape a flaming crash site while the Rozzarians were hunting down Penelo, Fran, and Basch.

Still, Penelo could not imagine Balthier would ever sacrifice his Strahl (if he loved nothing else he loved his airship) but she knew, because she had seen it with her own eyes, that the Strahl's distinctive paintwork and outer fret work, which made it so recognisable, could be removed easily from the hull leaving a very plain looking airship underneath.

It took an age for Penelo, her thoughts racing ahead, to fight her way through the dense forest of spindly stalks and stems and punch her way through the wheat field, and when she did, from a much lower vantage point, she could not gain her bearings to find the direction of the crash site.

Her fists were clenching and unclenching furiously as she put the pieces of a puzzle she did not know the shape of together. Looking left and right for any sign of Fran or Basch Penelo headed towards the small copse of trees about half a mile down the dirt road from the field. Whatever was going on it was better to avoid being out in the open.

'I hate you Balthier.'

She muttered as, bruised and disorientated, Penelo scuttled along the road towards the trees. She turned around, shading her eyes to look towards the distant, hazy purplish hills in the not too far distant horizon.

She didn't believe there were only two parachutes. The thought was bedrock in her mind. The idea that Fran would allow Balthier to be so reckless made no sense. With those two pirates it would either be that Balthier had no parachutes at all (too arrogant to believe he'd ever need to bail out of his precious Strahl) or the ship would carry the full allotment for the number of passengers it could carry.

If he had abandoned the falling airship moments before it hit the gulley bed; if he had jumped ship after the airship (and she did not think it was the Strahl at all – any ship could be painted orange and pink and blue) had passed beyond sight, then it was possible Balthier had easily survived the crash.

If Balthier was dead, Penelo decided, barely conscious of the fact that her feet were carrying her, not towards the relative safety of the copse of trees, but down the slight decline of the road and towards the hills, then he could not be prosecuted for Larsa's stolen Gil.

Feet pounding over dusty, flinty dirt path, kicking up a cloud of bone dry dust in her wake, Penelo ran as fast as her shaky legs could take her towards the cleft where the smoke from the airship was still visible; twirling lethargically up towards the pale, pale early morning sky.

Soon she could not run any more and her side ached and her lungs burned and the tears scolded her sweat soaked cheeks; salt on salt. Still she could not stop herself moving forward as the undulating land began to climb steeply and the path dwindled into no more than a foot beaten trail that picked its way unevenly over rocky ground.

The hills, and that snake of dwindling grey smoke, were her only horizon, the only thing she was truly conscious of, as she dragged herself up the craggy hill, a rough cleft of land hewn from twisted and exposed tree trunks and sharp stones that cut her legs as she stumbled and almost tumbled to the bottom.

'I hate you Balthier. I hate you; you'd better not be dead.'

The words, paradoxical and hardly coherent, became her mantra as she dragged herself up and over the inhospitable terrain. When a trio of Rozzarian airships swooped low over head Penelo took cover under the over hang of a grass and vine covered hollow in the hillside.

Wedging her way in backwards, eyes watching the sky and anxiously waiting for the ships to pass overhead and race on towards the fallen airship, Penelo had no time to so much as draw breath in surprise when a hand clapped around her mouth and jaw and she was roughly dragged into the hollow by a pair of strong arms wrapped in bloodstained and tattered white cotton sleeves.

* * *

_The world is filled with those who know the value of nothing and the price of everything; it is they who make good souls poor._

Penelo knew instinctively who it was who held her and so it was not survival reflex or terrible fright that inspired in her a furious rage that had her twisting like a serpent to rake her nails (blunt and bitten) down his face, clawing at his eyes, as her feet snapped at his shins and any body part she could kick out at.

Penelo had killed and been party to the deaths of others but she had never wished harm on another living being like she did him at that moment.

'IhateyouIhateyouIhateyou!' She panted in one long stream of hurt, betrayal, and acidic relief. He was not dead and she was glad because now she could kill him herself.

She wanted to gouge out those hypnotic, secretive, dark eyes and spit into the bloody, weeping sockets.

The very violence of that thought stole her fury far more effectively than anything else and by degrees Penelo drew still. When she was calm enough to see beyond the red lightening of her own anguish, swiping scolding tears from her cheeks with shaking hands, Penelo found herself draped half on top of Balthier who watched her through a mask of grime and dried blood with jaded, quiet eyes.

The small hollow was larger than she thought; it was instead a sort of tiny cave of dirt and dangling roots, which smelled richly of loamy soil and mulch. The entrance to the hollow was covered with a long trailing curtain of long grass from above and neatly barricaded by a wall of brambles.

Penelo, in her furious shock, had clambered right through the careful camouflage heedlessly. It was only now that she realised how contrived the little hide out was -how obviously hume-created and perfectly proportioned for one tall, but lean, man to hide in until the coast was clear.

Gulping in air into aching lungs in the space that was really too small for two people, even when one was long and lean and the other short and svelte, Penelo waited for him to say something.

He didn't say a word however and after a few awkward seconds more and Penelo's eyes grew accustomed to the poor light and the lack of space with which to see, she realised that some of the blood on his face had been drawn by her nails, and that the scent of copper richness she had mistaken for fresh turned soil also came from the deep, vicious gash along his right leg that seeped blood into the dark ground.

'Fran wasn't expecting that immobilisation spell.' Penelo blurted out suddenly, confusing herself with those words. 'She was planning on pretending to crash right along with you, but you changed the plan; why?'

Of all the bitter truths she had worked out in her own mind and all the questions and accusations she could have hurled at him, she hadn't expected to start with that. It proved to be a good decision however as he actually answered.

'She was hurt the last time we pulled a caper of this sort. I was not prepared to risk her life again.'

He sounded tired and in pain as he tipped his head back and closed his eyes. He was slumped against the wall of the hollow and unable to sit up straight in the tiny space. Once again Penelo's gaze dropped to the gash in his leg, running from mid-thigh to below his knee, neatly bisecting the flesh. He had used one of his belts as a makeshift tourniquet above the site of the wound.

Penelo pursed her lips and examined the wound with the experienced touch of a healer. His hand darted out and clamped down on her wrist, pulling her hand away before she could so much as begin the incantation for Curaga.

'Why not let me bleed out, hmm? Save your compassion for someone you do _not _despise.'

Despite his words there was very little venom to his tone as he dropped her hand and shifted a little painfully to elevate his leg. She watched the wound ripple and could see, peering against the dim, pale light that came through the tangle of undergrowth at the hollow's entrance, the layers of fat and tissue that had been paired back by whatever had sliced open the meat of his thigh.

'I don't despise you.' she told him sadly reaching out again to lay hands on the wound, and this time he did not stop her, moaning instead as he was unable to withhold his relief when the Curaga spell flowed from her palms through his tired, battered body.

'Why not?' he asked after a moment when she had used a strip of her own tattered silk trousers to clean the half healed wound of grit and dirt and prepared to cast another curaga. She glanced at him and met eyes that were as dark as the dirt hole he cowered in.

'Because even if I tried, even if I nurtured every little hurt you've caused me, I could never, ever, hate you as much as you hate yourself.'

She told him boldly and waited, her breath caught in her chest, for his response. He smiled faintly and closed his eyes again.

'True enough,' he breathed out.

He was not looking at her but still Penelo fought the hot tears prickling at her eyelids. His calm reaction to her words, to the accusation she had never dared level at him before, hurt her in a strange way more than anything else he had ever done to her. It hurt because she loved him and it wounded her that he just didn't seem to care about himself – or her - at all.

'I've figured it out,' she told him quietly, wishing she could move away from him, wishing that her legs weren't entangled with his and her head wasn't bent against his shoulder because she had no other way to lay down in this hole and no room to sit up. She wished dearly that the way they were lying together did not remind her of being in bed with him and that the close, tight, humidity of this little dirt hole didn't put her in mind of dark, sweltering nights under fine cotton sheets.

She waited but he didn't show any inclination to say anything in response to her. Penelo noticed that the right side of his face was swollen and discoloured with an enormous, advancing bruise and his eye was half closed under a congealed knot of blood and filth.

Whether he had planned the whole thing or not, he had obviously taken an immense risk deliberately crashing that airship; he could so easily have died in the attempt – and yet – he just didn't seem to care at all. Penelo, stupidly, wanted to clean his face for him but did not dare. Somehow she thought that he would stop her if she tried. Somehow she knew it wouldn't really hide the ugly truth anyway.

'You planned everything didn't you? You knew that Larsa would send me to Balfonheim and that I'd agree to come. You knew that Larsa would send Basch to rescue me as well.'

Penelo looked up at him, but his eyes were still closed, his face under the dirt and the bruises still as a statue and his breathing so steady he might have been asleep.

'You never thought Larsa would send another million Gil for me; I was just the bait to catch Basch.'

She sucked in a breath of hurt and continued doggedly, oddly emboldened by his absolute silence.

'You knew that Larsa would tell Al-Cid that you had stolen the Gil and that the Rozzarians would be ready to attack the Strahl – or an airship that looked like the Strahl – if it came to Bervenia. You knew all that so you created a fake Strahl and engineered this whole crash.'

Again she waited, baited breath, for his denials. She waited for him to smirk at her, mock her, commend her for working it all out, or smile that sly, seductive smile of his and ask her _hmm and what, pray tell, are you going to do about it, my dear? _Yet he did none of those things. Instead he remained still and quiet and remote as she revealed all his secrets and all his schemes.

'Fran must have been waiting in Balfonheim, or Cerobi or something, for sign of Basch, so that she could ambush him. You and Fran stripped Basch of his armour so that you could use it at the crash site, didn't you?' she demanded to his stony, distant silence and received only the sound of his soft, steady, breathing in response.

Staring at his face, absolutely expressionless and empty of life, she had to bite back the desire to hit him again, just to get a response. Instead she took a deep, steadying breath and put her thoughts together as she spoke.

'The Rozzarians are going to find the armour in the wreckage of what they think is the Strahl – they'll know that a Judge Magister is here and if Larsa really doesn't know what's happening then he soon will and Al-Cid would be scared that he'd be found out.'

The statue moved and Balthier almost made her jump when his lip curled into a humourless half-smile, 'Not Larsa; Al-Cid does not fear Larsa.'

Penelo stared at him, all her almost formless suspicions, the fears of her subconscious, rearing up and being proved correct all at once.

'Ashe.' She whispered. 'Ashe knows everything doesn't she?'

* * *

_I once bit deep of the forbidden fruit of love. It bit me back and still I bleed as loves poison weeps from hearts wounds that ne'er will heal. I loved you and you loved me not. _

Balthier opened his tired eyes and looked at her with remote, dispassionate eyes, 'A sky pirate does not wage war on two empires simultaneously for no reason.'

He told her while answering nothing at all. Penelo did not realise she was crying (again – so many tears) until he reached out a scratched and bloodied hand to brush them away with the pads of his thumbs.

'Ashe told you about the secret Gil onboard the galleon, didn't she?' Penelo whispered brokenly.

'Yes.' He said just as softly, except that he would never break – or maybe he had simply broken years ago already?

Penelo thought furiously, trying to think her way through the heartbreak; she wanted to know, at least, why all this had happened. It wouldn't make it hurt less, but at least she would know the truth.

'Ashe didn't want to marry Al-Cid,' Penelo suggested growing more confident in her assertions as she spoke, 'and she suspected there was something wrong about Al-Cid offering her the Bervenia magicite so…..'

'The marriage of the Dynast queen to a scion of Margrace is not popular with your countrymen.' Balthier said softly as Penelo hit a dead end in her thought process, 'nor with her Highness. Ashe has had bad luck in marriage before and has no desire to see her kingdom become a province of Rozzaria anymore than a conquest of Archadia -alas her privy counsellors do not feel the same.'

'So she needed proof that Al-Cid wouldn't be a good husband,' Penelo seized upon the motive, 'but she couldn't just admit her suspicions because if they weren't true it would look bad. So she…..'

'Hired a sky pirate to dig up her dirt for her,' Balthier murmured dryly. 'I was already aware of the Bervenia situation but without the support of a monarch a pirate dares only so much.'

In the hot, clammy darkness Penelo took three tries to find speech and was glad when her voice rang out steadily, 'Thank you for telling me the truth.'

She struggled, almost blindly, deafened by the hammering of her bleeding heart, to clamber over his legs and body towards the entrance to the hidey-hole. 'I'd figured most of it out myself, but I appreciate that you didn't deny it.'

She added refusing to cry and give him the satisfaction of her pain; though in truth it hurt more to know that he had never deliberately set out with the objective to hurt her but instead had not really thought of her feelings at all.

She was halfway out of the hollow when his words stopped her, 'You had one part wrong.' He told her while never once looking at her.

'What?'

She didn't want to hear his voice anymore. She didn't want to know how stupid she had been to ever believe, even for a moment, that he was capable of caring for anyone when he didn't even really care for himself (no one who cared about themselves would wilfully pretend to die, or alienate every friend he had if he cared about his own well being).

'You were never the bait; I did not really need your involvement at all.' He told her in lilting, melodious voice.

It hurt more than she thought it would. The last tiny, treacherous filament of hope she had cherished - that he might still _need_ her even if he didn't want her – snapped and her head hung low between her shoulders as she hesitated on hands and knees half in and half out of the hollow.

'Why do it then? Why do all this to me?'

His neck turned and his head went with it. His brown eyes were black holes in his face reflecting no light and giving no warmth. 'You're here because I missed you, sweetheart.'

Penelo felt the blood leave her head as her heart burst. She could not even formulate speech. She could not quite believe her ears, except that she did not believe that Balthier would demean himself by telling her a lie quite so needlessly cruel.

A bitter smirk scythed across his face as he turned away from her and let his eyes, windows to a blackened soul, fall closed once more.

'I threw you away but I couldn't let _him_ have you; I couldn't let any of them have you. I don't deserve you but neither does any senator, or armoured executioner.' He whispered on the dead air.

Penelo, feeling like she was dying a thousand times over and more scared than she had ever been scrambled away from the entrance of the hollow and ran, as fast as her legs could carry her and her aching chest could power her flight. She thought she heard, but it might have been only her mind playing tricks, his voice in her ears.

'Goodbye sweetheart.'

She was running so fast and so blindly, desperate to flee from heartache and the deep, stormy waters of love and lust, that she did not even feel it when the waiting Rozzarian patrolman struck her across the head with his cosh as she flew along the rocky path.

When she fell into unconsciousness it was something of a blessing in disguise.


	9. Chapter 9

_Tomorrow is another day but yesterday is irreplaceable._

Penelo's legs hurt and her feet were so cold they felt like lead weights on her ankles but still she ploughed her way through the thick wall of untainted snow with single-minded determination.

She was wearing three layers of thick clothing; all purchased with Balthier's Gil in an expensive store. Her legs encased in tall, fur-lined boots that rose to her mid-thigh, and she wore a coat of fur inlaid expensive suede leather dyed a fetching lavender colour. The gloves on her hands were specially treated with some manner of wax or oil (Penelo did not really know) so that the snow melt did not soak through. The coat had a hood as well, trimmed in rich, white fur and a decorated wool knit cap hugged her head under the hood.

As she waded through the snow her breath curled out onto the pristine, crisp chill air and swirled in curlicues before her. The black and bare spindly reaching branches and skinny trunks of trees sat atop the hill before her was her destination. Truthfully Penelo was not out here in the ice white wilderness because she had any where to go; she was here because she loved the snow.

'There is a perfectly serviceable path, you know.'

The voice glided smoothly over the frigid, beautiful stillness of the snow capped day. Penelo turned to face him beaming.

'I know.'

She continued to fight her way through the snow drift which covered her almost to the tops of her high boots. She was using her arms to power her way along. Walking through the brilliant quilt of white was like trying to walk through water without waters buoyancy to help her.

Putting one foot before the other Penelo yelped as she suddenly found herself almost up to her chest in snow as she fell into a hidden pot hole. The crunch of feet moving over the frosted ice and snow was accompanied by the rich, warm rumble of laughter as Balthier left the safety of the swept path to haul her out of her predicament.

Of course he nearly ended up being swallowed in the sink hole of snow as well as Penelo, feeling like royalty in her warm clothing (which cost more than any set of clothes she had ever owned) wrapped her arms around his shoulders and did very little to actually pull herself out of the hole for the simple reason that she enjoyed being treated like something precious instead always having to shift for herself.

Muttering about spoiled madams Balthier managed to haul her up to her feet once more and helped to sweep the snow from her legs and lower body.

'Are you prepared to return to the path now?' he inquired dryly.

Balthier himself was dressed for a hike through snow blanketed hills as well. He wore a dark fur-lined coat much like Penelo's but plainer and more serviceable and his hands were encased in black gloves; his boots leather and lined with fur climbed up his legs to mid thigh as well and buckled along the sides in a series of shiny silver clasps.

'No. I want to walk through the snow. I want to see my foot prints.'

Clasping his coat sleeve she started through the snow towards the hilltop once more, dragging Balthier along after her.

Penelo found the snow, so thick, so pure, and so perfect, transforming grassy mores and craggy hilltops into mystical and alien landscapes of ice and luminous white, breathtakingly beautiful. She had been raised in a land of sand and heat; a city where even the coolest breeze carried the grit of sand and dust and she longed to leave her mark over the unspoiled perfection of this foreign landscape.

More than once as she struggled up the hilltop, her five feet two inches not offering much aid against three foot high mounds of snow, Balthier's hand on her elbow kept her upright and travelling. He made no demure against her strange desire to wade through snow and simply kept pace with her as they ascended the hilltop.

She was actually panting a little and dewed in a fine coat of sweat across her brow when they finally reached the top. Shoving her hood back because it restricted her line of sight, the cold, clean, chill air kissed her sweaty brow with sharp affection and Penelo gripped Balthier's hand as she looked down at the rolling vista of snow and bare trees that fell beneath her feet.

She saw a large expanse of water, a lake with its own tiny marina, almost swallowed in a sheen of greenish, grey ice. The light from the greyish white sky (laden with the snow heavy clouds) brought out strange bands of colour in the frozen lake's surface. Like a miniature glacier she saw ribbons of lilac and gun metal grey, turquoise and copper flame green in the still, dark ice.

Squat and sturdy houses, made of timber with smoking chimney stacks dotted the landscape in tiny clusters. Gazing outward Penelo could see a more densely populated collection of houses following the winding, circuitous, trail of a river. As the river forged through the frozen landscape the dwellings grew more elaborate and the hamlets grew into larger towns, until eventually, far into the distance, she could see a walled city the size of Rabanastre.

Balthier pointed towards that city, rising out of the snowy landscape with a quiet, solid and understated pride.

'Landia; former capital of the Republic of Landis. The river is the Lindenfana and it is one of the greatest rivers in Ivalice. It begins in the mountains of Baresfort in western Archadia and joins the ocean in eastern Landis, at the port of Tayburn.'

Penelo swallowed up this knowledge greedily. Travelling with Ashe had opened up all Ivalice to Penelo, introduced her to places and peoples and sights she had never imagined, but had not offered much opportunity for simple exploration. Likewise discovering Lemures and travelling the floating isles had simply made her homesick for her Ivalice, a place she wanted to see from snow peaks to deep oceans. She wanted to see it all and, in some tiny way, make a mark on what she saw.

'What happens in Landia now that it is part of Archadia?' she asked curiously, 'Does it have a consul, like Vayne was for Rabanastre?'

'Yes,' Balthier agreed, his own eyes sweeping over the landscape but his thoughts on what he saw hidden, 'however the consul of Landis is Landissian by birth. Enbert Tow-Haegen also refers to himself as Regent.' Balthier glanced at Penelo with a meaningfully raised eyebrow.

'The Tow-Haegen family was once the ruling family of Landis before the people declared a republic and overthrew the king. Enbert, not much liking his status as a commoner, sided with Archadia during the war and was granted the consulship in reward.'

Penelo absorbed this in silence, trying to imagine how awful it would have been, how great a betrayal of the people of Dalmasca, had Ashe collaborated with Vayne Solidor just to keep her throne.

'The people of Landis must hate him.' She looked at Balthier and saw he was smirking slyly.

'Oh they do.' He agreed with dark enjoyment, 'There is an Imperial regiment permanently garrisoned within Landia solely to protect Enbert from his subjects; to my knowledge there have been at least twenty attempts to assassinate the turncoat.'

Twenty assassination attempts? Penelo felt her eyebrows hike up her forehead, 'They must be really bad at it.' She said without thinking about it too much, 'I mean, the assassins.'

Balthier laughed, bright and quick, a sound that instantly brought a smile to Penelo's face because it was not often Balthier was surprised into honest laughter. 'Yes, for a country of Knights and warriors they dearly want for a decent general and strategist.'

'Still,' Penelo mused looking narrowly at the small, neat, self imposed city in the distance, looking quietly competent behind its pale white walls.

'I would think that the Empire would be quite happy if the Landissians keep fighting their Regent because then they aren't fighting the Empire. I bet the Empire is only keeping Enbert alive because he's a good scapegoat.'

Balthier arched a brow and looked over to her as he offered his arm to escort her (carefully) back down the hillside to the path once more, 'How very astute of you, my dear; that is precisely the Empire's strategy. Though I have heard Larsa is interested in granting Landis her autonomy once more.'

Penelo, although her ears pricked at mention of Larsa (and she could well imagine that he would want to free Landis if he could; if only for Basch's sake) found her thoughts were running along a different track.

'It must be hard,' she murmured musingly, 'thinking like Archadians do, all the time; thinking about one-up-manship and scheming and plotting everyday. After a while it must feel as though the only thing that exists at all are the schemes and the secrets. You must become so blinded by those schemes, by all the lies and pretences, that you can't even see all the beauty right before your eyes.'

Penelo had been speaking in general terms, using 'you' without really ascribing the word to anyone at all but Balthier stopped dead, almost tripping in the snow drifts as he came to an abrupt halt. His eyes were a little wide and very startled when Penelo looked up at him questioningly.

'What's wrong?' she asked, thinking he looked like someone who has just had quite a nasty shock.

Balthier shook his head dazedly and tried to affect his usual nonchalant expression, but his eyes were intent as he scrutinised her closely.

'Sometimes, my girl, you are far too astute for my liking.'

He muttered distractedly, hackles finally dropping as he led the way to the path through the snow. It was years later, and in very different circumstances, that Penelo would finally realise why her idle musings had disturbed Balthier so much.

The truth is a bitter pill to swallow, after all.

* * *

_With forethought comes selfishness; in retrospect lingers guilt. In the intransient moment the true mettle of a man is known._

Penelo managed to gasp out the final syllables of the Protection spell before the Rozzarian's boot connected with her ribs. The impact of steel-toed shoe with soft tissue and bone was blunted by the spell but Penelo was still kicked across the clearing. She came to a stop at the feet of another Rozzarian solider who grabbed her by a fistful of her hair and hauled her up, until her head was jerked back at agonising angle.

There was male laughter, thick and bestial, and jibes and cruel jokes that she could not understand, as she did not speak Rozzarian, but whose barbaric meaning was obvious. Penelo was not so much trapped in a ring of humes as fiends cloaked in hume guise.

The man pulled her fully to her feet by the hair and Penelo did not resist, waiting instead for the best moment to strike.

The man, who smelled of sweat stained wool, cheap leathers, and cooking oil, grabbed her around the torso, his hands hovering over her breasts as his comrades sniggered.

Biting the inside of her lip Penelo waited until the man moved to grope her and then she twisted violently in his arms and kneed the man in the groin before shoving the flat of her hand into his nose as he doubled over. There was a satisfying crack as his nose broke.

The other men moved in but she was ready, the incantation for a scourge spell tore free of her lips as she pivoted and landed a high kick (courtesy of Fran's teaching) to one man's neck (she couldn't reach his head).

Before waiting for the dust to settle, or the men who had dodged her vitality sapping scourge spell to advance on her, Penelo began to run. Her head pounded and her stomach twirled with nausea from the large bump on her left temple caked in dry and flaking blood where the man had ambushed her.

She did not know where she was; she had woken up in a wooded clearing surrounded by hostile soldiers who did not speak her language (and would not speak in the standard Ivalic tongue). All she knew was that she was in dense woodland and it was dark. She had likely been unconscious all day and the fact that she had awoken intact and unmolested could only be divine intervention.

Low branches tore at her hair and scratched across her cheeks and she ran through the thick undergrowth of brambles and thorns. Her foot caught in a loop of exposed tree root and her legs scythed out from under her.

Penelo crashed down face first into a bed of rotting leaves and fungi, knotted roots and prickling thorns, and the impact stole the air from her lungs and the wits from her head.

She could feel the vibrations of the Rozzarians pounding pursuit reverberating through the ground as she struggled to gather the sense to haul herself up and disentangle herself from the undergrowth.

Her pursuers seemed to melt out of the dark spaces between the trees like grinning gorgons from her nightmares. She could see the cold, slavering lust and vicious inhume, unfeeling, victory in their eyes; dead and flat.

One of the men, grinning in the slack-jawed way of hungry Lobos scenting fresh kill, snagged her ankle and dragged her out of the nest of brambles. She kicked out with her free leg, twisting like a serpent pulled from its dark hidey-hole and hissing her own venom.

One of the quicker witted Rozzarians cast a silence spell on her before she could finish the incantation for Firaga and Penelo screamed noiselessly, more with frustration than fear. She twisted at the waist and recoiled up the length of her own body to smash her two fists into the man's stomach.

He let go staggering back, but one of the other soldiers came up behind and hit her across the back of the shoulders and upper back with a large stick. The sharp, broken ends of twigs edging the length of the tree branch broke the skin on her back and drew blood. The force of the blow knocked her face down into the brambles again.

Oddly enough this was to prove beneficial as above her head the air was shattered with the cataclysm of a Quickening storm more savage than anything Penelo had ever witnessed.

Struggling to raise her head in the sudden vacuum created by the roiling maelstrom of burning Mist, summoned above the heads of the Rozzarians like a judgement of the gods, Penelo had only the strength to roll onto her back to watch.

The air beneath the canopy of the trees seemed to ripple with orange and scarlet liquid fire, a rolling veldt of brilliant bloody colour that coalesced into a enormous ball of anguish.

Penelo squeezed her eyes tight shut and tried to brace herself for the agonising pain of being pulverised into vapour and ash when the comet of Mist engendered rage hit the ground.

There was a sound like a hundred million wing beats colliding with the hiss of burning surf hitting granite rocks, and a light that was so thunderously dark it was almost black; a kaleidoscope of rainbow colours in shadow black bands of intense heat, which striped across her tight closed eyes. She waited for the pain, or the sound of screaming.

Silence reined for a single heartbeat and then there was the crunch of feet moving across the cluttered, uneven ground. A wave of soothing relief flared through Penelo's tired, beleaguered body.

She struggled to open her eyes as her body was gently buffeted by lapping waves of healing warmth. It felt like she was floating on her back on warm, balmy ocean waters; fingers of magick stroked over every cut and bruise and ache and pain; whispering over her misery and erasing it all.

Competent, brisk hands turned her head very gently to examine the cut on her temple. A hand rested over the spot where the Rozzarian's boot had connected with her ribcage and she felt the suffusion of healing only intensify through physical contact.

She finally managed to open her eyes; she knew that touch too well. Above her, kneeling before her and almost glowing with the shivering wisps of Quickening Mist still outlining his frame, casting a midnight gleam to his eyes and radiance to his pale, pale skin, Balthier clicked his fingers and summoned curaga to his hand.

* * *

_Silence is golden and confession is rarely so good for the soul as secrets kept. We are all cowards but sometimes we can be brave in our contrition._

As the curaga spell took hold Penelo realised miserably that she even knew the taste of his magick; the tang of salty air and high winds, the purity of spring water and the hint of something sweet lingering after.

She had never really doubted that he'd come for her, if he knew she'd been taken, she simply hadn't wanted to be beholden to him in gratitude.

She did not cry as she stared up at him mutely, unwilling to move and unable to speak. Balthier, concentrating on seeking out every tiny graze and throbbing bruise, did not seem aware of the fact that she was awake and watching him. She thought he couldn't be aware or else he would never have said what he said then.

'I am sorry.' It was so quiet that it did not sound like him at all.

The pain in her chest, which didn't have that much to do with the imprint of the Rozzarian's boot in her flesh but had more to do with a broken heart, lessened as Balthier continued to gently rub the pain away with fingers wreathed in greenish-white healing flame.

'I am sorry for this,' he whispered stroking the tips of his fingers over her exposed mid-rift (her clothing torn almost to shreds by Rozzarian greedy hands and the brambles). Pain receding with his every touch, Penelo's skin rippled deliciously as he stroked a palm over her stomach.

An apology did not erase all that had happened or absolve him but, for Penelo, it was something. If only because it was acknowledgement that he had something to be sorry for.

Dark eyes suddenly hit her face and Penelo blinked in surprise as she realised that he had known she was conscious all along.

'I am so very, very sorry.'

Penelo was almost glad she could not say anything because she could not think of a word to say.

Balthier did not seem to care for any response however (which convinced her that he meant it and was not merely apologising to absolve a twinge of conscience), as he used the sleeve of his shirt to wipe the crusted blood from the wound on her head.

She closed her eyes and relaxed into another swathe of healing as it seeped from his fingers to the wound like honey and sunshine distilled in a simple touch. She wriggled her toes in pleasure.

After a moment she was drifting peaceably away on a current of magickal warmth, feeling like a cloud sailing through a sky of green-white magick, as Balthier massaged her scalp and tenderly cleaned her face of blood and dirt. Penelo actually yawned silently and snuggled into the bed of roots and rotting foliage as if it was the thickest, softest, feather mattress.

'Can you sit up, or do you need support?'

Penelo opened her eyes and blinked at him then, belatedly making sense of what he was saying. The last thing she wanted to do was get up and rejoin reality; she wanted to curl up, wrap herself up in the warmth and care that flowed from his fingertips, and sleep for a thousand years. Still, that would not be very practical.

Reaching out to use his shoulders and arms as leverage she laboriously began to haul herself upright. She expected pain, but there was none. Balthier curved his arm around her back and his free hand cradled her skull as if he feared her head still pained her.

She looked over the tiny clearing disinterestedly and then jolted when she saw the bodies scattered over the scorched soil and smouldering undergrowth. She turned to look pointedly back at Balthier who curled his lip in a cold smirk.

'They were worthless sacks of meat alive; at least dead they will make a good meal for fiends.'

Again Penelo found her silence a blessing as she could not think of a thing to say in response to the carnage all around, Balthier's calm triumph at the deaths he caused, or the fact that his arms shook (and his whole body trembled with a fine, tightly suppressed tension) as he manoeuvred her body so he could lift and carry her.

Penelo was initially stiff in his arms, wondering if she should not walk simply to prove she did not need him. However it was very comfortable resting her head against his shoulder, and letting him do all the hard work seemed fair recompense for all the trouble his schemes had caused her.

Still, she was forced to slide down onto her own two feet and lean against a tree while Balthier pillaged a corpse for his rifle and spare shot, slung the gun's strap over his shoulder and fished an Echo Screen out of his belt pouch.

Penelo was almost reluctant to drink the potion as she did not want to have to talk; it was more peaceful in silence. Nevertheless she couldn't remain mute forever.

'You killed them all with Element of Treachery.' She croaked and again wondered why it was that the first thing out of her mouth was always so very foolish.

'Hmm,' Balthier scooped her up into his arms again and Penelo decided not to mention that she felt well enough to walk on her own, 'it's amazing what a man can do when he has no weapon and a quite pressing need to stop a travesty. I only wish I'd caught your trail sooner.'

'Where are we?'

Penelo supposed she should still be angry with him, but under the circumstances she really didn't have the energy. He had used her, and hurt her feelings, but then he had come to her aid and saved her from pain and abuse of a much more damaging kind.

'I have no idea. I've spent the last six or so hours scouring the Bervenian countryside looking for you. I suppose had I given a little forethought to the situation I would have marked a trail to follow once I'd found you.'

Balthier admitted ruefully beginning to breathe a little harder as he struggled through the underbrush with her in his arms.

Penelo wriggled to the ground somewhat reluctantly. She was not a child after all, 'I can walk.'

Which she did, albeit unsteadily, fatigue in every step. Balthier watched her for a second, thinking about something hidden behind an inscrutably blank expression, before he swiftly stepped up to her side and rested his hand, very lightly, almost tentatively, around her waist; there to catch her should she fall. They walked in silence, neither one of them knowing where they were going.

In her mind, Penelo could not weigh up the differences; she could not balance the scales.

He had tricked and deceived her; he had treated her not as a person with thoughts and feelings but as a tool to be exploited. He had hurt her terribly……but at the same time he had made her feel beautiful when he sketched or painted her. He had confided to her things she was sure he had never told another soul (maybe not even Fran). He had made her feel like a goddess and worshipped her with affection, indulging her curiosity unstintingly. He had provided the means not only for Penelo to fulfil her meagre dreams but to conceive of greater ones as well.

Even when he used her there was a sense, strange and barbed though it was, that he did respect her in some odd way; if only in the sense that she was useful to his ends.

Still, was it enough that he knew how to make a woman feel loved, was that enough to excuse him his deceits and manipulations? Was she merely deceiving herself by making excuses for him?

Penelo closed her eyes, defeated by it all. She did not know what was right and what was wrong. She did not want to forgive him because to do so was to say her hurt was not so great and did not matter……and yet, in her heart, she knew she already had.

'How did you know about the ambush?' she spoke up after a long, long time of silence.

Balthier sighed glancing at her sideways, 'I followed you from the hollow,' he admitted grimly shaking his head. 'I…..I was not happy with how we parted company.' He admitted awkwardly before he shook his head again sharply and continued in more normal tones.

'You run like the wind my girl. How you managed to out pace me when your legs are by far the shorter, I do not know. Alas by the time I caught sight of you again you were dangling over the shoulder of a Rozzarian brute; bleeding.'

They had come up to a point of the straggling path they were following where a large tree had fallen and the thick trunk had already sprouted with moss and fungus blocking their passage. Penelo did not relish clambering over it and even Balthier had trouble vaulting over it.

Before Penelo could do more than eye the trunk sceptically Balthier had leaned over from the other side and lifted her over neatly. With his hands on her waist and hers gripping his wrists she thought for a moment that he was going to say something more.

His expression was conflicted and although she could not put a name to any of the emotion that pinched his eyes, she was nevertheless aware that the mask was cracked and more of his feelings stood on display than she had seen before.

She waited but the moment passed and he released her, almost reluctantly, and began to move ahead once more.

'Are you in love with her?' she blurted out quite abruptly as Balthier began to forge ahead through a thick mass of overgrown thorn bushes, which he shoved out of the way to clear a path for her. He stared back at her blankly.

'Beg pardon?'

'Ashe; are you sleeping with her?'

Once upon a time, before Balfonheim and the first sketch Balthier had ever drawn of her, the girl Penelo still was at heart had firmly believed that the sky pirate and the queen-to-be were lovers. Then Penelo lost her heart to Balthier herself and hadn't thought beyond her own infatuation. It had never occurred to her to wonder if hers was the only bed Balthier frequented. Now, Penelo wondered if she had only ever been a commoner replacement for a completely different Dalmascan?

Balthier had stopped dead along the dark, green, close forest path and was staring at her, more surprised than she had ever seen him. 'Good gods no. What would make you think that?' he sounded almost scandalised.

Penelo, surprised in her own way by his response, refused to feel foolish in the face of his naked shock. She also refused to acknowledge the voice in her head that told her not to believe him, that told her that even if he had not been unfaithful in that way he had in every other way, hadn't he?

Averting her eyes Penelo just shrugged defensively, 'Why else would you do all this for her?'

Balthier laughed harshly forcing her to look at him, 'I am not doing this for Ashe, or Dalmasca. Frankly if I never hear another word about your homeland I shall die a happy man.'

He stepped forward and placed his hands on her shoulders, when Penelo turned her face away, staring at the mushrooms and roots of the muddy forest floor over her shoulder, Balthier lifted her chin and turned her to face up to him with one finger.

'Penelo if I cannot even muster the decency to treat you well, when I am already far too fond of you for the good of either of us, do you really think I would tolerate being the kept pirate of an exceedingly demanding queen?'

Penelo stared into his serious eyes and knew he was telling the truth. Oh, she would have liked him to say that he would never betray her with another woman, or that he loved only her, or that he had never even thought about Ashe in that way; but as nice to hear as that would be it would never be his true feelings. Balthier simply did not work that way.

She sighed and pulled away from him pushing her way through the thorns blocking her path heedless of the sharp tares pricking her skin. There was another question on the tip of her tongue, almost burning her with the desire to be spoken, but she did not dare. She did not dare ask him because she realised, ultimately, that love on its own without respect was meaningless.

After a moment Balthier took the lead and kicked loose branches off the path so she did not trip and cleared the way of over hanging boughs and brush so that she could pass. All the while, as they forged through the endless dark green of the forest, they kept an uneasy silence.

They both knew that she had forgiven him already and they both knew that he did not deserve it. All that mattered was whether Penelo would keep giving all her heart to him until there was nothing left to give.


	10. Chapter 10

_One step forward two steps back is the way of a world turned black._

It was incredibly dark in the forest and Penelo walked with one hand curled into the fastenings and ties at the back of Balthier's vest to keep herself steady. The muttered oaths and stumbles as Balthier tripped over objects on the ground and walked into invisible tree branches functioned as an early warning system so that Penelo could save herself from trips, falls, and getting smacked in the face by low hanging twigs.

She had tried using a ball of Holy to light the way ahead for them but the magick had not remained stable and after she had incinerated a small blackberry bush they had both decided it wasn't worth the risk for what small illumination the magick offered.

Abruptly Balthier stopped on the path and Penelo ended up walking straight into him. 'This is pointless. I cannot see my hand before my face; we'll not find our way out anytime soon.' He muttered.

Penelo had already decided the whole thing was hopeless hours ago. Her legs ached intolerably, the muscles of her thighs twitching with fatigue, her eyes burned from the effort of trying to see through the thick, canopy shaded darkness, and her head rang with exhaustion. Still, stopping for the night could be just as dangerous, as they could end up food for fiends.

For no sensibly reason Penelo began to giggle. It was all just too much; she had survived an airship crash, been betrayed by her lover, been knocked unconscious and very nearly raped, and now she was lost in a forest with no obvious way out. Penelo did not have the energy for tears, so instead she laughed.

Balthier had turned around to face her (Penelo could just make out the gleam of his eyes in his grey silhouette) and she barrelled into his arms without thinking about it. She pressed her face into his chest and decided not to worry about the fact that she really should not be snuggling up to him but instead should have the sense to hate him thoroughly. The whole situation was just so pathetic that it made her laugh all the more.

Balthier wrapped his arms, covered in tattered sleeves, around her and sighed deeply, belying his own exhaustion, 'Now, now, no hysterics or you'll set me off too and one of us needs to be at least partially sensible.'

Penelo tried to regain her composure but she was light headed from hunger (she had not eaten anything since Balfonheim) and her brain buzzed giddily with spent adrenalin and over-wrought nerves.

She was still giggling as they stumbled blindly into a small clearing between the trees, where the canopy broke enough to allow faint starlight to cast silver shadows across the bouncy moss coated grass. Balthier pushed her down onto the spongy quilt of leaves and pine needles and collapsed down beside her.

Penelo let her head drop onto his shoulder, leaning her weight against him as Balthier rested against the trunk of a tree. 'I'm so tired I can't think.' She admitted around an enormous yawn.

'Hmm, go to sleep then.'

Balthier's voice almost slurred with exhaustion and Penelo supposed fuzzily that he'd had a long, tiring day as well. Deliberately crashing an airship, getting injured in the crash, and then chasing after her and her kidnappers. In reality neither one of them was fit to stand watch but one of them would have too.

Penelo was actually thinking about offering to take first watch when she all but passed out asleep.

_

* * *

__The selfish man feels guilt and does penance for his sins; the unselfish man simply makes amends._

Balthier knew Penelo was asleep when she capsized over into his lap and he had to catch her and prop her up in his arms. Almost instantly, and with that sensuous abandon she always displayed while asleep, Penelo slipped one hand across his tattered vest to run fingers over the damaged patterning. She sighed contentedly with her arms arrayed about him possessively.

Balthier kept his eyes open (though he could not see much of anything) and tried to remain alert for the sounds of predators lurking, but the truth was he was almost sick with fatigue. He'd had quite a day. Contriving his own supposed death, breaking a girl's heart, murdering a group of lecherous wretches and traipsing aimlessly through a forest that seemed to have swallowed the length and breadth of Ivalice it was so vast.

Penelo mumbled something nonsensical in her slumber and nuzzled her head against his shoulder. Balthier tried not to wince as she kneaded a nice collection of bruises with the crown of her head. He made a mental note not to crash any more airships for a while; he'd barely made it out of the last crash in one piece. To keep Penelo from fidgeting and accidentally exacerbating any of his injuries he stroked his fingers through her hair as she slept; he knew she enjoyed that.

'Mmm….Balthier?'

He only realised his eyes had closed when they popped open at the sound of her voice. Guiltily he looked about him and was relieved to find they were not surrounded by slavering, blood-thirsty fiends.

'Hmm?' good gods but he was exhausted.

'I wanted to ask you something.' Penelo mumbled, her eyes stilled closed and her head still nestled against his shoulder. She yawned and once again nuzzled the clump of bruises over his collarbone; at the very least the jab of pain helped to keep him awake.

'Hmm?' there was a tad more suspicion to his non-committal utterance this time around. He did not want to be forced to lie to Penelo again.

'Mm, I had a letter from Tomaj a little while ago,' Penelo told him sleepily, 'you remember him? He was with us during the Lemures battles.'

Balthier forced his mind to rifle through the pages of his recollection and finally placed the man Tomaj. 'Yes,' he said after a moment, 'the knave who fancied himself a businessman; had rather a liking for Fran, if I recall.'

Fran, who was used to the unwanted attention of hume males and somewhat inured to all forms of romantic overtures, had nevertheless shown considerable tolerance towards the Rabanastran would-be entrepreneur's clumsy attempts to woo her.

When he had asked, curious, why it was she was encouraging the young sap with her gracious acceptance of his gifts, she had told him that Tomaj reminded her a little of Balthier himself, only without the self-denial and bitterness. Balthier had decided that there was nothing politique he could say in response to that and so had said nothing at all.

Penelo giggled a little as she opened her eyes and tilted her head up to look at him, 'Well he wrote to me about maybe doing a show together.' She told him diffidently.

He frowned puzzled, 'A show?'

'Yes, a travelling song and dance act; he said that with the reputation I had gained from the Archades music halls and his business acumen we could be the best travelling performance artistes in all Ivalice.'

Balthier blinked, shifting against the tree trunk he was leaning back on, 'What business acumen? My understanding was that every business venture he has ever begun has ended in bankruptcy and a need to run from his creditors.'

Penelo moved away from him a little and looked up at him thoughtfully, 'Well – he did say that he thought this would work out better as our overheads would be low and profits would be high because people would want to see me dance.'

Balthier considered this; he had seen Penelo dance after all. 'Hmm, I see.' he said carefully, 'What was the question you wanted to ask me?' for she had said she wished to ask him something.

'Oh, um, I wanted to ask your opinion; do you think they will? Come and see me dance I mean. Do you really think people will pay to see me dance in a new performance; one they don't know the words to?'

For a moment the image of loose flowing golden hair, pink silks, and spinning petals under a blazing desert sun rose up, Phoenix like, in his mind's eye. In his memory sinuous, strong limbs twined in dance, a young, lithe body moved with a staggeringly graceful violence of intent and he could almost hear the rhythmic thunder of bare feet over rough wood stage.

'Hmm…..yes, I rather think they might.' He cleared his throat a little awkwardly and decisively stopped his imagination dead; now was not the time or the place to be thinking about Penelo writhing and twisting in dance -or writhing for any reason – he added firmly.

He realised rather to his surprise that he himself would pay to watch Penelo perform, and had done so in Archades, a place he had promised never to return to. Balthier would pay quite a bit of Gil to see her dance, he realised, and this was while knowing quite well that she would perform for him for free if he asked her to.

He shook his head to clear it and spoke a little more briskly, 'Of course that is not to say that soft hearted sap Tomaj wouldn't have the capacity to make a loss out of your talent. If I were you, and you are insistent on taking Tomaj as a manager, I would find someone else to back your venture financially.'

Balthier was not sure he had said more than ten words to Tomaj when they were all trapped together on Vaan's airship, but he did remember watching with a certain bemusement as the cheerfully foolish young man had plunged a potentially lucrative business as weaponry and sundries seller into the red at alarming rate. The man had wit and initiative enough, in Balthier's opinion, but he (like Rabanastrans in general) was too generous by far to be a successful businessman.

'What about you?' Penelo asked. She had grown tense, almost rigid in his arms as he spoke and now looked up at him with intense, slightly anxious eyes. For the life of him Balthier could not make head nor tails of her attitude.

'What about me?' he asked, genuinely not understanding how they had gone from discussing her future career as a popular entertainer to him. What did he have to do with her future?

Penelo, her face moon pale and indistinct in the starlight dappling the trees and falling down onto the loamy soil and mossy quilt they sat upon, still seemed to be all but holding her breath in suspense.

'Would you back me?' she asked in tremulous voice, 'Would you…..would you….' she trailed off, eyes dropping and gaze skittering over a clump of mushrooms huddled at the base of a tree trunk a few feet away.

'You want me to put up the Gil for your new venture?' he asked just for clarification.

He was genuinely surprised that she would ask such a thing of him; she had never shown any inclination to gain access to his Gil before. Instead she had always been so delightfully surprised and grateful for anything and everything he chose to give her.

Penelo flinched away from him, sitting up with her back to him and wrapping her arms about herself, almost defensively.

'I'm sorry.' she said in a quiet voice, 'it was Tomaj's idea and I told him you wouldn't want to do it but he was so excited about the idea and I thought maybe….maybe you'd think I'd be good enough and that,' she sighed gathering her thoughts as she looked sadly over her shoulder at him, 'I'm sorry. I had no right to ask you, let's just pretend I never said anything.'

Balthier frowned. He was shocked, somewhere deep inside; it was not that Penelo would ask him for such a thing, or that this Tomaj had thought to use his affection for Penelo to manipulate him (as a very good businessman) to support one of the other man's latest schemes. Instead he was shocked (and a little hurt – truth be told) that she would think he would not give her the Gil if she asked it of him.

He had his faults (and they were legion) but he had never denied Penelo anything if it was in his power to give it to her (save perhaps basic honesty – but then he did not grant anyone that).

Still he was a businessman at heart (piracy was merely a business on the other side of the law when one looked at it sensibly) and a businessman never gives his Gil away without judging the merits of the venture. 'What, pray tell, would this new musical extravaganza entail?' he queried dryly.

Penelo, who had turned her back on him again and was looking down at a patch of springy mossy flowers (Balthier was no botanist and one plant looked much like another to him), looked up at this turning huge blue eyes to him with something like dawning hope.

'Oh!' Under the dappled spray of silver starlight and banded shadow he could almost see the blush rise in her milk pale cheeks, 'Um, well, Tomaj wrote it, and well,' Penelo seemed to be mentally girding her loins, 'it's called the Cerulean Chocobo and mostly it seems to involve me wearing an outfit with lots of feathers and spangles and not much else.' she admitted ruefully, 'Tomaj says that's the sort of thing people like to see.'

'Feathers and spangles?'

Balthier could feel the smile curving over his lips, 'I don't believe Chocobo's come in that particular shade of blue; I've never seen one particularly spangled either.' he added simply to see her reaction. Penelo was no prude and she giggled before swiftly attempting to look disapproving and proper.

Rising to the game she gave him a narrow –eyed look, 'Don't laugh. It's actually a pretty good play. I think Tomaj has a real talent for writing and it could be lots of fun.'

She explained to him in a rather haughty manner that was very unlike her, and then, teasingly, she fluttered her eyelashes at him over her shoulder.

'I look good in blue, anyway.'

She added provocatively and Balthier chuckled pleased that the strange, melancholy atmosphere between them had passed away. The uncomfortable silences heavy with apologies he could not force off his tongue for love nor Gil and the anguish Penelo simply did not have in her melted away in a spirit of companionable mischief.

He found himself indulging in thoughts of Penelo wearing nothing more than a few strategically placed sky blue feathers, sequins and beads. Yes, he could see the profit in the idea. Smiling faintly and feeling in much improved spirits, Balthier opened his arms for Penelo who snuggled back into his embrace comfortably.

'How much?' he asked after a moment and felt Penelo tense a little once more as she instantly understood his question. She hesitated on giving the sum, although he knew she had to have it ready on the tip of her tongue; vaguely he wondered how long she had waited to bruit the subject with him?

'Twenty thousand,' she admitted awkwardly. Balthier arched his eyebrows, though Penelo could not see it. Twenty thousand Gil was not such an enormous sum to him in truth, but Balthier had not entered into piracy because he enjoyed giving his ill-gotten gains away.

Still, he had always enjoyed to gamble and a be-sequined and spangled Penelo might be worth a hit to his finances. His mouth curled up at the edges and he kissed the top of her head.

'Very well.'

Penelo tilted her head up and back so she could roll her eyes to look up at him. The position didn't look comfortable and Balthier couldn't resist brushing his fingertips over the exposed stem of her throat, which in turn made her shiver.

'You'll pay?' she asked as if she couldn't believe it. Really, Balthier thought a little put out, he wasn't that much the heartless bastard.

'That should make us even, hmm?' he murmured closing his eyes and tilting his head back against the tree trunk as Penelo snuggled in and re-arranged his arms to suit her more.

As apologies went it lacked emotional depth, or any promise not to hurt her again in the same manner at some unspecified point in the future, but throwing Gil at a problem was the way Balthier had been raised to resolve conflict; it was the aristocrat's way.

It seemed to appease Penelo in any respect. She reached up to kiss his cheek lightly before resting her head in the crook between his chin and shoulder; she did not thank him and he felt better for that. She had accepted the tacit apology in his offer of financial aid and his conscience, while not any lighter, was at least silenced by her forgiveness. He let his eyelids droop closed as inky black cloud smothered the thin light from the stars above their heads.

It was not foolproof but it seemed to Balthier that if any fiends were on the prowl they would have pounced by now and he was so tired his tongue was sandpaper in his mouth and his brain was heavy as a brick. He fell asleep with Penelo warm, pliable, and softly inviting curled in his arms.

* * *

_You can never know a person; their outer shell changes with the years and their true heart and mind are never to be revealed._

Penelo was woken roughly as the comfortable, firm but warm pillow she was resting on (otherwise known as Balthier) moved with speed, dislodging her as he surged to his feet and had his stolen rifle drawn and trigger cocked in an eyeblink.

Penelo, picking herself up and spitting out a mouthful of moss and lichen she had swallowed as she fell forward onto her face in the grass, looked up to see a rather scabrous and unhealthy looking Marlboro lurch out of the thick brambles lining the clearing into the open space.

Penelo had just a moment to think to herself that she had never seen a Marlboro that looked quite so bedraggled and unfortunate when the fiend, upon spying Balthier's rifle pointed straight at it, suddenly developed arms and vocal cords.

'No wait! Don't shoot!'

Penelo leapt to her feet even as her jaw dropped and her mind, abruptly awakened from peaceful slumber and still partially shrouded in dreams, registered the impossible fact that she recognised that voice.

Balthier's whole body jerked as he took his hand from the trigger mechanism in total surprise and the Marlboro began the laborious (and frankly revolting) process of shedding its skin to reveal the man underneath.

'Vaan!'

Her best friend, her life-long companion, the person she loved with the determined, constant devotion usually reserved for blood family, stood before her. His pale hair (falling floppily into his eyes) and his wide eyes were totally familiar to her but what was not so familiar was seeing Vaan's round, still boyish, face, framed by the drooping, filmy glazed eyeballs of the Marlboro carcass he was wearing like a cloak.

'Gods almighty,' Balthier growled more in exasperation and shock (he had been a split second from shooting Vaan in the head) than real anger. 'What the hell are you doing?'

Penelo, who could not so much as formulate a coherent thought as she stared at Vaan mouth hanging open, staggered to her feet and clasped Balthier's sleeve.

Vaan looked from Balthier to Penelo and shrugged (which was made all the more disturbing as the gesture made all the eyeballs of the Marlboro bounce up and down). 'I'm in camouflage.'

Penelo continued to stare at her friend; there was no single thought in her mind that could force her tongue to work as she stared. The Marlboro skin was……moulting. Bits of dead Marlboro peeled off and flaked down to the ground like dead leaves. The tentacles were dragging about his feet and tangling in the underbrush and one of the eyeballs on the fleshy stalks dropped off onto the ground as she gaped at him.

'Camouflage?' Balthier asked leadenly as he too looked fastidiously at the discarded eyeball.

Vaan nodded and extended his arms from split flaps in the Marlboro's skin. Penelo was silently relieved that his arms weren't twinned with Marlboro intestines or entrails of some sort. Sometimes she wondered precisely how Vaan's brain functioned for she did not think it was the same as any normal hume.

'Yes; this way no Rozzarian will recognise me. This is a stealth outfit as I move about undetected.'

Balthier propped the rifle on his shoulder and studied Vaan for a long moment, 'A stealth outfit?'

He repeated in tones as soft and insubstantial as snowflakes at night. Penelo looked over at him; Balthier was either lividly angry or trying very hard not to collapse with laughter but Penelo could not tell which.

'Yes,' Vaan agreed again beginning to get annoyed at the fact that Penelo could not stop gaping and Balthier seemed rather slow to grasp the basics of his disguise. 'It helps against the fiends in this wood too; they don't know what to make of me so they keep their distance.'

'Yes, quite.' Balthier said in very, very dry voice, 'And did it not occur to you Vaan, that impersonating a fiend might not be the most prudent way of remaining incognito?'

Penelo managed to clamp her gaping jaws together again and gently squeezed Balthier's arm as she sensed the strained impatience in his tone.

Vaan frowned, managing to contrive to look aggrieved at their response to his cunning disguise.

'The Rozzarians are looking everywhere for you, me, and Fran. They know we're here with Basch and its really dangerous to walk around without some kind of disguise. This way no one recognises me. They just think I'm a fiend.'

Balthier made a less than elegant noise of frustration in the back of his throat and turned exasperated dark eyes to Penelo, 'Would you mind terribly if I just shoot him?'

Penelo nipped her lip and shook her head against a grim smile as she strode over to Vaan and slapped him about the top of his head, 'Vaan -you idiot -humes shoot fiends. They might not know you're you but you'll be just as dead!'

'Hey!' Vaan jerked back, but not before Penelo had retreated from the monstrous smell of dead Marlboro skin and shrivelled eyeballs. He paused a moment and then flushed, 'Um, I guess I didn't think about that.' He admitted bashfully.

'I'm not sure you think at all.' Penelo sighed as Balthier shook his head and threw up his arms in despair of them both.

'Did Fran send you to find us?' he asked impatiently.

Vaan nodded, 'We checked the hidey-hole by the crash site and you weren't there but Fran caught both of your scents leading into this forest. Fran and Basch are somewhere in this wood as well, but I found you both first.'

Balthier gestured for Vaan to lead the way back to reunite with Fran and Basch, which he did, waddling along in a surprisingly good approximation of a Marlboro's tiptoe shuffle.

Penelo exchanged a look with Balthier and saw his lips curved up in suppressed laughter behind Vaan's back. He gave her a slight flourishing bow and gestured for her to precede him after Vaan.

Penelo imagined, as she followed Vaan through the sunlight lit thick woodland, that Fran must have thought it amusing to send Vaan off looking as he did; either that or Vaan had skinned a Marlboro after separating from the Viera. Penelo could not imagine Fran would have thought dressing up as a fiend was a good idea -unless she secretly wanted Vaan dead?

'There is a strong Rozzarian presence on the island, you say?'

Balthier asked coolly as they stopped and waited while Vaan picked himself up, having tripped over one of his tentacles in a thick patch of stinging nettles.

Penelo had reached for friend to steady him but withdrawn in disgust when her hand touched sloughing dead Marlboro flesh. Balthier had the excuse of being too far away to assist but the honest truth was he wouldn't have stopped Vaan falling even if he wasn't wearing a dead fiend on his back.

When Vaan was upright once more (and any number of Marlboro eyeballs had dropped out of the fleshy stalks – Penelo felt queasy even looking at him) Vaan nodded his head.

'Yeah….there's probably something you should know.' He admitted reluctantly beginning to rub at the back of his neck and shuffling his feet in habitual gesture. Another eyeball popped from a dead stalk, quite suddenly Penelo reached her limit of endurance for her best friend's eccentricities.

Balthier quirked any eyebrow but before he could inquire after what it was they (or rather he) should know Penelo interjected explosively. 'For the gods' sake Vaan! Take that horrible thing off before I throw up on you in disgust!'

Vaan looked hugely startled and Balthier glanced at her a little surprised; huffily she crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her chin defiantly. 'I mean it; take it off. _Now_.'

Vaan reluctantly complied, he knew Penelo well enough to recognise that particular tone of voice and that disobedience would not be tolerated. The dead skin sloughed off him and lay like a foul smelling bundle of rags at his feet. Fastidiously, and ignoring all the jellied eyes looking up at her, Penelo kicked the foul thing into the underbrush.

Balthier cleared his throat pointedly, 'Right, now we have that out of the way,' he glanced at Penelo in case she wanted to make further interruption. When she just shrugged he returned his gaze to Vaan, 'perhaps you'll tell us what it is, precisely, that we need to know, hmm?'

Vaan looked from Penelo to Balthier, both of whom had crossed their arms across their chests and looked decidedly worse for wear after a night spent in the woods. Vaan licked his lips nervously.

'Umm, well, Fran thought you ought to know,' he began and Balthier narrowed his eyes at him as he hesitated; Vaan looked acutely uncomfortable, 'Al-Cid is here…..and so is Ashe.'

Penelo blinked, not completely sure what the relevance of this was, or why it was bad news (though she could tell from Vaan's face that it was bad news). Balthier however understood how bad it was to have Al-Cid and Ashe on the island completely, at least Penelo thought he must as some of the worst curse words she had ever heard erupted from his lips.

Penelo stared from the abruptly furious Balthier to a very sheepish looking Vaan, 'Yeah,' he muttered, 'We're in real trouble now.'


	11. Chapter 11

_There is no mystery greater than man; we are all enigmas and uncharted territory to each other._

Penelo was still trying to work out what was going on and why Vaan's revelation that Al-Cid Margrace and Queen Ashe were in Bervenia had tooled such a doom upon Balthier when the man in question suddenly reached forward and grabbed Vaan by the labels of his simple blue vest and hauled him up almost off his feet (Vaan was not tall).

'What did you do?'

Balthier's voice was almost butter soft as he snarled into Vaan's face and the dichotomy between his tone and his actions scared Penelo a little; Balthier did not lose his temper often but when he did it was decidedly less than pleasant. Penelo moved forward and clamped her hand down onto his forearm ready to prise his hands off Vaan.

'He is not to blame.'

Fran's cool voice interposed itself within their fraught tableau and, as if the Viera's strange, sweetly monotonous inflection was some sort of spell, Balthier let go of Vaan, lip curling in disgust and stepped back from him to face his partner.

Fran and Basch stepped from the shade of close standing trees and approached. Fran jerked her head towards her partner and Balthier stepped over to her. The two sky pirates, ignoring the Penelo, Vaan, and Basch completely, bent their heads together in conference.

Penelo watched the two for a moment but could not pick up anything Fran said, and Balthier was not talking but listening, giving up Penelo turned to Vaan.

'Well?'

Although she could not quite fathom how or why she had the uncomfortable feeling that she was in for a number of unpleasant surprises; Vaan had best be forthcoming with explanations or she felt certain she would be the first Rabanastran dancer to spontaneously combust from sheer, repressed frustration.

Vaan was rubbing fiercely at the back of his neck awkwardly. This was never a good sign. 'Um, well….you see there was this time when I went with Balthier and Fran to do a,' he glanced at Basch and censored whatever he was about to say, 'a..um, a _job_ in Bervenia.'

Penelo glanced swiftly at Basch who sighed loudly and shook his head. Penelo knew what a 'job' meant. It could have been anything from trafficking forged licences for weapons and magicks, or bootleg weaponry and accessories, or counterfeit Gil bonds, or possibly just visiting the island to rob the wealthy landlords; it was impossible to know when dealing with sky pirates. Penelo should know she sort of was one.

Vaan, still staring fixedly at the mossy, twig strewn woodland floor continued doggedly, 'And I ended up talking to some of the local people about the Avenlieu family who govern the island and how they were unhappy about Rozzaria stealing all their Magicite.'

Penelo had sinking feeling in her stomach, 'Oh no, Vaan, please don't tell me this is all your fault.'

In her spare moments between one crisis or another Penelo had been trying to work out what would have possessed Balthier to get involved in Bervenia's problems. Balthier had told her that he wasn't involved with Ashe in anything other than a professional capacity and Penelo (although she had her doubts) accepted this. Of course if he wasn't doing it for love and it seemed unlike that a million Gil was worth the effort he had exerted what was he doing all this for? Now face to face with Vaan's guilty awkwardness Penelo could feel an uncomfortable suspicion taking root inside her and roiling her stomach.

Vaan's sky blue eyes met hers, 'It was just like Lemures, or Rabanastre all over again; foreign invaders stealing the livelihood of the people who live here.' He looked exasperated, 'I had to do something and when I found out that the Magicite from here was being sent to Dalmasca…..'

'Vaan -it was you? You told Ashe about the Magicite?'

Penelo knew she was gaping again, and she knew it was hardly a very flattering thing but she could not help herself.

Remembering Basch's silent presence beside them she glanced sharply at the older man. Basch, who looked much like a man who would rather be anywhere but here, shook his head sadly and extracted a wax sealed velum letter from his inner breast pocket of the raw hide jerkin he wore.

He held the letter out to her, 'We are in the twists or a coil indeed. This is a sore business.'

Penelo took the letter and read it swiftly.

_Dear Basch,_

_If you are reading this then Balthier's scheme has been successful and you are now in Bervenia. I must extend to you my most sincere apologies for such underhanded subterfuge but I hope that you may come to understand my urgency and why I felt justified in taking such actions. _

_The laws of diplomacy -nay, my very rank and duties to my people -demand that I remain impartial and receptive to any and all suitable suitors for my hand…….but Basch, know this, I do not trust the Margrace family, and while I respect and even like Al-Cid in person, I also know that his first loyalty is to his family and country. I believe he is involved in something unscrupulous and immoral and can find no better way of revealing this and freeing Dalmasca from a potentially dangerous alliance than to rely, once more, on the ingenuity and resources of old allies, even if they be thieves and pirates both. _

_If there is something amiss in Bervenia I have faith that you will find it out and bring it to light, for you have ever been a man of good judgement and unimpeachable moral rectitude. _

_Your loving friend always_

_Ashelia of Dalmasca. _

Penelo finished reading Ashe's personal entreaty to Basch with thoughts churning in her head. Her first thought was that Ashe certainly knew how to manipulate her former Knight Protector into doing what she wanted and her second was to wonder if she and Balthier compared notes on the best ways to deceive and use people.

'How did you….?' Penelo stammered looking at Basch. The older man plucked the letter from her fingertips, folded it neatly and tucked it away reverently into his inner pocket.

'Fran carried the letter with her. She gave it to me and explained the nature of the supposed airship crash as we searched for you and Balthier.'

Penelo stared fixedly at Basch's placid, carefully neutral expression, 'But don't you feel angry at being used like this, and by Ashe of all people?'

Basch smiled crookedly and looked back at her just as keenly, 'I could ask of you the same question for are we not in similar circumstances?'

Penelo clamped her jaws tight shut so firmly her teeth clicked and she could feel her cheeks warming with an angry sort of embarrassment as she turned to shoot a less than friendly look across to Balthier, who was still in deep conversation with Fran. Occasionally his arm would move as he gesticulated with angry strokes of his hands. Fran remained characteristically staid and stoical.

Penelo, not prepared to really consider the ramifications of Basch's words (was he in love with Ashe -and did she know?) turned back to her best friend, who she was now feeling less than warmly towards.

'There's more you want to tell me isn't there?' she suggested strongly as Vaan looked increasingly uncomfortable. Then a look of stubborn determination and a certain rough cunning (the look he had worn throughout the Lemures battles) overcame his awkwardness. Vaan stood up straighter and met her eyes firmly.

'Something had to be done and we -Balthier and Fran and I -were the only ones who could fix this.' He paused and frowned at Balthier's back, 'but Balthier wouldn't do anything because he didn't want to get involved in politics anymore….' Vaan's eyes flickered, 'so I went to see Ashe and she told me about the million Gil, and well, a million Gil's a lot of Gil….even for a sky pirate.'

So it was the Gil, Penelo thought dully looking back at Balthier almost disappointedly. So much for all that talk about wanting to free Bervenia from tyranny. Of course it might just be that the Gil gave Balthier the justification he felt he needed to do a good deed…..just like Ashe's wedding ring had been all those years ago.

Penelo found herself finally with all the pieces of the conspiracy to hand and able to slot them all neatly together. Vaan's altruism and Balthier's brains put the two together and you had this whole mess. Still, Ashe's involvement cast a pall over the situation and threw up more questions; one was particularly pressing to Penelo who turned on Vaan accusingly.

'Since when do you just drop in on the queen whenever you feel like it?'

It was a moment of almost stunning, world altering revelation, as Vaan's cheeks suddenly flared with heat and his true blue eyes skittered away from her. Penelo felt her stomach drop to her knees. Her mouth fell open but her throat was dry; she could not speak for the life of her.

'It is not safe to linger here; we should make haste for the rebel encampment.' Fran strolled up casually seemingly oblivious to Penelo's astonishment, Basch's acute discomfort, and Vaan's anxious embarrassment.

Vaan almost tripped over his feet in his hurry to get away from her uncomprehending gaze and Basch, looking quietly sad and sympathetic, trudged after Fran. Penelo remained rooted to the spot in stunned amazement until Balthier's hands landed on her shoulders.

'This is no time to catch flies, my dear.' He murmured with a certain understated mocking cheer, reaching around her neck to click her gaping jaws gently closed. He turned her about face easily enough and lifted her chin with one hand studying her glassy, dumbfounded expression.

'Hmm, I know. Try not to think too hard about it; better for your sanity that way, darling.'

With Balthier half pushing her forward with an arm around her waist Penelo stumbled along after the others. Her hot, confused and strangely wet eyes burning twin holes in Vaan's back.

'I thought it was you,' Penelo murmured almost dazedly still staring with hurt eyes at Vaan's back as he bounced along ahead of them through the close, narrow, bramble lined path Fran guided them through. 'I was so sure you and Ashe were…'

'Hmm,' Balthier agreed and she thought she heard a warm thread of amusement in his tone, 'Ironic is it not, the way life turns out at times?'

'Vaan,' Penelo breathed out, 'and Ashe?'

She couldn't help feeling obscurely hurt. All those times during their long quest with Ashe to free Dalmasca, all those times she had tried to entice Vaan (foolish and inexperienced as she had been then) had she really been that oblivious to what was really going on, or had something blossomed between her best friend and her queen afterwards…..after Lemures maybe?

She tried to tell herself it did not matter and she should be happy for Vaan. After all Penelo had realised years ago that Vaan would never reciprocate her feelings and, after Balthier, she had realised that although she loved Vaan she was not really _in love _with him, at least not romantically.

Vaan would never make her blood burn hot in her veins and her heart jump to her throat as Balthier could do with no more than a word or a twist of his lips, but all the same Penelo could not help but feel as if Ashe had stolen something from her; something that could not be reclaimed and which, if Penelo was to be brutally honest, she did not really think Ashe deserved.

'Vaan and Ashe,' Penelo repeated as if repetition would somehow make it all make some form of sense and her world would go back to some semblance of normalcy, 'Ashe and Vaan. I do not even understand how that works!'

She eventually exploded shaking free of Balthier's arm and marching forward, sidling by the slow trudging Basch, to come up behind Vaan and smack him (hard) in the back of the head.

Vaan yelped and stumbled, almost falling to the woodland floor once more and Penelo almost wanted to push him all the way down and drive his face into the dirt. She didn't know why she was so very, very angry; she just was.

'Why didn't you tell me?' she demanded, her voice rising and then suddenly Balthier had clasped her hand and pulled her off the path and into his body, but his hold on her was not soft, or gentle.

'We do not have time for jealous tantrums; either behave like an adult, both of you,' his black ice gaze flicked to a hurt and aggrieved looking Vaan before rooting on Penelo's hot, tearful face once more, 'or I shall tie you both to a tree and let you bicker amidst yourselves until the Rozzarians find you; understood?'

For Penelo, who had not reacted with such hot anger when Balthier (her lover) had betrayed her (because she had almost expected he would – he had told her not to trust him, and as much as she loved him she did not, really, trust him that much), the fact that Vaan had kept secrets like this from her, for Vaan to have ended up the mastermind (after a fashion) of this whole mess that led her to be in Bervenia, hungry, bruised, tired and hurting….well it was more than she could easily swallow.

Breaking free of Balthier's restraining grip she turned on her heels and ran blindly into the dense undergrowth and perpetual darkness of the forest. She heard voices calling after her but she did not heed them. She was deaf even to her own commonsense which screamed at her to go back to the safety of the path and the protection of friends.

She plunged into the shadows, undaunted and blind to the thorns that scraped her face anew and the branches and brambles that snagged her hair and the tatters of her ruined clothing. She ran and ran and still she could not outrun her confusion.

Her world was off kilter and she was no longer sure of anything; her best friend had found love and it was not with her.

* * *

_For a player of many parts it is admissible to let ones feelings slip, but never ones mask._

Balthier found her perhaps fifteen minutes later sobbing broken heartedly, head bowed and almost prostrate at the bottom of a dry stream bed. Her golden hair spilled down around her head and obscured her face, snagged and snarled with leaves and bits and pieces of woodland foliage. She looked quite profoundly tragic.

Sighing and trying to restrain his impatience Balthier made for her. He had not seen why it should fall to him to go and fetch her but the general consensus seemed to be that as he was sleeping with her he was somehow de-facto guardian of her emotional well-being. Personally Balthier did not see the logic in this assumption but was not about to debate the issue when Fran gave him her patented _look._

As he came up on Penelo, who was still sobbing with the single-mindedness of a small child he had to remind himself that while only five and a half years separated their birth, an ocean of cynicism separated them in experience.

What was to him an amusing oddity (Ashe and Vaan – it had given he and Fran something of a chuckle once they guessed the truth) was to her akin to as death in gravity and seriousness. Moving silently he descended the slight bank of the dry stream and crouched by Penelo.

'You really are an odd girl.' He mused quietly. She could face all manner of hardships and find a smile, and accept any number of shocks in a short period of time and then, all of a sudden, she reverted to a weeping girl for no good reason at all.

She did not react to his presence though he knew that she had cast a libra spell and well knew he was there. It was an odd experience to be, for all intents and purposes, ignored by Penelo when usually she watched and studied his every move as though she would memorise every breath he took.

He could not say he minded not being the focal point of her attention, not because he did not enjoy the undivided attentions of a lovely young woman, but because increasingly, he had begun to feel quite uncomfortable under her scrutiny as if he was guilty of something; which, in retrospect, he actually was.

Still, seeing Penelo throwing her weight about and behaving like a petulant, silly little madam was oddly refreshing. It made a change from her usual mien of serene contentment or quiet, patient forgiveness. However they simply did not have the luxury of time to indulge her temper tantrum any longer.

'Up you get, my girl, or I'll leave you to your misery and the tender mercies of the Rozzarians.'

Penelo's head jerked up then and he saw her eyes were hot, furious, and bloodshot and her cheeks were mottled pink from her tears. She drew in a sharp breath and he thought she might even say something sharp to him, but then her bottom lip trembled and her head drooped again. She seemed to slump into her bones.

Balthier, who knew as well as she that he would not leave her here alone and that his threats were not worth the time it took to speak them, sighed and gathered the miserable girl into his arms.

'Now, now, dear heart, if I_ had_ any, you would be hurting my feelings with this display,' he drawled laconically, 'you are behaving as though your true love has left you at the altar.'

Penelo responded by gulping a noisy sob and thrusting her head painfully hard into his collarbone, wrapping her arms about him and shuddering convulsively with tears. Balthier heaved another deep sigh and began dutifully stroking her hair, very conscious of the need to get out of these interminable woods and away to the safety of the rebel encampment before they were discovered.

Alas, the realities of life and death, and whether or not Ashe's presence on the island foretold her treachery and their doom, would have to wait for Penelo to come to terms with the old cliché of times changing and people with them.

Truthfully had Balthier realised just how much of a visceral shock to the system Vaan's dalliance with Ashe would be to the girl he would have warned Penelo in someway beforehand; frankly he had never imagined this would prove to be the straw that broke the Chocobo's back.

'I just…' Penelo choked trying to find her voice and regulate her breathing, 'I don't know what's wrong with me. It's just…..'

She trailed off and Balthier sighed again. It was not that he did not in someway understand her feelings, although in truth he was finding them a little difficult to fathom, it was just that Balthier wondered at how anyone could become so absorbed in the triviality of a person's romantic affairs, or put so much importance upon them.

Love and romance were simply words; sex was a recreational pastime and a means of species reproduction but neither dubious emotional attachments nor intimate physical activity was worth crying over.

'I think she'll hurt him.' Penelo mumbled, head pressed into his neck and lips brushing against his skin as her tear dampened eyelashes tickled over his throat.

'Vaan is good and honest and,' she paused, 'he's not stupid really, but he's simple. Everything is simple black and white, good or bad, with Vaan and I can understand that Ashe would like that, seeing as politics is never simple, but I still think she's only using him.'

Balthier wondered at the female mind and how Penelo, having never seen her friend and Ashe together, and with no knowledge of their relationship, could jump to such conclusions; more alarming was the fact that Balthier rather thought she was right.

'I just thought he and I would always have each other, no matter what,' Penelo mumbled on, wallowing in her own unnecessary sorrow, 'but Ashe is a queen and she'll probably make Vaan her Knight and he just won't have time for me.'

Balthier knew it would not do to laugh at Penelo, or her girlish silliness. He had the sense to keep his true thoughts to himself, even if he did think her misery somewhat self-indulgent and overblown. Balthier did, however, consider the fact that Penelo did not appear to hold her queen in very high esteem of interest. It was not an opinion he would have expected of Penelo who seemed to go out of her way to like everyone.

In contrast Balthier's feelings towards the Dynast Queen were slightly more mixed, he knew Ashe, and he rather enjoyed her majesty's company, but he did not trust her any more than he trusted himself. Ashe had sold her heart and soul to win back her kingdom and her only interests would ever be for herself and her kingdom, just as Balthier's own interests were, first and foremost, to himself, his partner, and his airship.

'I really do think he's going to get hurt; she's a queen and he's…well, he's just a normal citizen. That can't work out, can it?'

She continued in maudlin tones and Balthier really wondered at what alchemy of pheromones existed in Penelo that he could listen to this drivel and still feel affection for her. he was beginning to lose patience with the theatrics; it was not even endearingly amusing anymore.

'Well then,' Balthier said bluffly as he realised that he was rather obligated to make some effort to cheer her up, 'If you are so worried for dear Vaan's tender heart, you shall have to be on point to protect him then, won't you?'

Penelo lifted her head and looked at him curiously, 'How?'

Balthier smiled dryly, she seemed to be recovering from her previous furious melancholy and extravagant tears rather rapidly and was now looking and behaving more like the Penelo he knew; brightening especially at the prospect of being able to do something in response to these most recent and upsetting revelations.

'Well, you could perhaps make the same promise that your dear friend Vaan gave to me, when he discovered our……relations.'

He had Penelo's full attention now and she forgot her self-pity completely, just as he had hoped.

'What promise? Why would Vaan promise you anything?' she asked keenly, and just a tad suspiciously. This was the Penelo who enjoyed conversing with; the innocent girl who might one day grow up to be quite a shrewd thinker.

'Oh,' Balthier smiled lazily, 'it was not a pleasant promise. In fact it went somewhat along the lines that if I deliberately betrayed your trust or flaunted you charms for my own ends I could expect to find myself without the capacity to breed at all.'

Balthier looked amusedly down at Penelo whose eyes had widened with appreciative shock.

'Of course Vaan was a tad more blunt in his speech than that, and demonstrated his point rather well with the use of his Danjango dagger and a sausage that happened to be on my dinner plate at the time; quite put me off my meal, I might add.'

Penelo gasped almost coquettishly and pressed her hand to her mouth to smother her giggles. Her eyes glittering with wicked amusement as she glanced swiftly downward towards his lap and then flicked her eyes back up.

'Oooh,' she murmured and Balthier arched an eyebrow.

'Indeed, you may have to modify the threat somewhat for her highness' benefit, perhaps threaten her crown or something she values equally well.'

Penelo grinned and then, rather impishly looked Balthier up and down, 'Did it work?' she asked slyly, 'Vaan's promise I mean?'

Balthier, pleased to see Penelo was in good spirits once more, winked at her as he stood and drew her up with him, wrapping an arm about his waist, 'Darling, if you want a man, any man, to behave himself you cannot go far wrong by threatening his…_sausage_.'

And Penelo laughed then, delighted and musical, and Balthier decided that he could put up with the occasional feminine temper tantrum if she would only smile like that more often.

It occurred to him, not for the first time, as they made their way back to the others and Penelo asked him for advice on how to effective threaten an anointed queen, that when Penelo finally woke up to her innate power of personality, her wit, and her influence, she would be a formidable force to be reckoned with. He rather hoped he'd still be around to see it but considering how things were going with this Bervenia nonsense that was looking a tad doubtful.


	12. Chapter 12

_The world is full of whispers in a language I do not understand; my ears turn inward seeking my own silence._

Penelo trudged along the carefully worn path up towards the windmill and farmhouse on the hill in miserable silence. She was so exhausted she felt physically sick and almost all her concentration went towards simply staying upright and keeping one foot before the other.

Their rag-tag party had made pretty good time once they finally breached the forest and emerged into daylight again. They had also had only a few Marlboro to contend with along the way (Penelo rather thought that the Marlboro King ambush had been in revenge against Vaan's decision to_ wear_ one of their brethren).

Still as Penelo stumbled along the path at the rear of the group and only Basch seemed to be paying her any mind at all, she could not help feeling rather melancholy and out of sorts. She had deliberately refused to walk with Vaan and could not bring herself to meet his eyes. She wanted to apologise for her earlier outburst but the words rotted and died, unspoken, on her tongue.

No one had said one word against her for running off so foolishly earlier and she did not think Vaan was angry with her for hitting him either, but Penelo, mired in misery and humiliation could not bring herself to make conversation.

Dragging her head up to look at the well-kept stone farmhouse perched atop the craggy hilltop and the high windmill, the blades huge and sweeping almost to the ground with every rotation, Penelo found herself frowning. She just knew another unpleasant surprise would be waiting for her inside.

The building was the home and property of a man called Arnault Vivaldino, the man that had discovered the Magicite ore under the hill just beyond the one Penelo now climbed and the man many thought was the rightful owner of the magicite mine; he was also the Bervenia resistance leader.

Balthier and Fran, leading the way up the hill, were the first to crest the top and almost as if he had been waiting, a man burst out of the honeysuckle wreathed pretty red door of the farmhouse and bounded towards the two sky pirates.

Once Penelo had caught up and stood sullenly alongside Vaan (who she was ignoring) and Basch (who she was also ignoring - but only because she hadn't the energy to speak) she could make out the man's features. He was a man in his late thirties or early forties, barrel-chested with arms corded with thick muscle from hard labours. He had a head of glossy black hair and a pencil thin beard and moustache. He also had the olive dark skin of most Rozzarians.

The man greeted Balthier and Fran enthusiastically and included Vaan in that greeting before turning to look at Basch and Penelo with slightly more suspicion as a woman and a gaggle of children peered at them all from the ground floor window of the farmhouse.

'Dis is de Judge you promise us, eh?' the man asked and Penelo, punch drunk with exhaustion, almost giggled at his accent, which reminded her of Al-Cid Margrace.

Balthier jerked his head to Vaan and Penelo watched curiously as Vaan cleared his throat and introduced Basch (as Gabranth) to the man, who must be Arnault Vivaldino, before turning to Penelo. Before Vaan could say anything Penelo stepped forward and thrust out a hand.

'I'm Penelo; I don't really know why I'm here.'

She said boldly and glared at anyone who was unfortunate enough to be in her line of sight, which happened to be Vaan and Balthier, happily enough. Arnault was a bit perplexed by this greeting and Penelo thought she saw Fran's ears twitch with amusement as Basch cleared his throat roughly to conceal a smattering of laughter.

'Ah, well de friend of Vaan is de friend of mine, no?'

Arnault said gallantly catching her hand and placing a kiss to the back of it, though interestingly he looked to Balthier as he said it.

Penelo was not sure why Balthier seemed insistent on thrusting Vaan into a position of leadership (as he had done once before in Lemures) but it was quite clear that Arnault, while prepared to go along with it for the moment, nevertheless knew who had the real power out of the two.

'Yes,' Vaan said suddenly, 'Penelo is my friend.' He added firmly and forced his gaze onto hers; Penelo squirmed under that oddly intense and wounded regard and sought refuge in looking towards the window crowded with curious faces.

After another brief moment of uncomfortably awkwardness in which time Fran looked as close to openly amused as Penelo had ever seen her and Balthier muttered something less than flattering under his breath (to Fran's further amusement) Arnault invited them to meet his family inside the farmhouse.

Penelo walked into the house through the honeysuckle scented red front door looking dead ahead, her jaw set in obstinate lines. Had the Rozzarians descended on the resistance leader right then and there they would have found themselves confronted with a tired, emotionally overwrought, Rabanastran street dancer in a state of furious pique; they would have known themselves doomed had they tried Penelo right now that was for damn sure.

She did not know why she was so furiously wound taut, but sooner or later something had to give. Penelo just hoped it wouldn't be her.

* * *

_We are all imaginary friends to one another._

In short order Penelo found herself seated on a cushion laid out on the bare stone floor of the farmhouse before a warm, crackling fire in a brick fireplace, a bowl of curds and wey before her in her lap as the sky pirates, Basch, and Arnault Vivaldino talked about secret things that Penelo was not even sure she wanted to know about anymore.

Uncomfortably Vaan, seated on a wobbly three legged stool (which Arnault's wife and daughters had brought in to accommodate their guests), simply sat and stared at Penelo. Under the weight of that quiet, aggrieved look, Penelo bowed her head and stared miserably into her bowl. She was starving but she had no appetite.

'De Rozzarian Imperial air galleon arrived yesterday; I do not know what de queen of Dalmasca look like, eh, so I can no tell you if she be wit' de slimy, treacherous usurpers of our land and labours.'

'Hmm, quite; about that, I have brought the Judge as promised and Vaan has been assisting you in your scuffles with Avenlieu's militia, however I would like to know what you have done to prove your claim to the mine. Aside from complain, that is.'

Penelo knew she should be listening intently to Balthier and Basch, Fran, and the man Arnault, especially if she had any hope of figuring out just what exactly was happening here. It was important; it was all so very important. Peoples' lives and livelihoods were at stake, but Penelo just could not help but find it all paling into insignificance compared to her own woes. She must be a horrible person, she decided mournfully, to be so insensitive and selfish.

A meaty fist smacked down onto the wooden dining table and briefly Penelo looked up to see a very red faced Vivaldino glaring daggers and a saturnine and unperturbed Balthier.

'You cannot be doubtin' dat de Avenlieu are...'

'I can doubt what I wish. It is not me you need to convince, but instead the Emperor Larsa and his representative his Honour Gabranth. Rhetoric and vitriol alone are not going to sway Archades to your side.'

Penelo frowned curiously towards the table where the conspirators (and Basch) all sat together around the table, elbows on the table top and tankards of ale all around. She might as well have been one Vivaldino's children, barely seen and certainly not heard. Penelo was just wondering if anyone would notice if she left when Vaan suddenly materialised before her, looking serious and miserable, and held out a hand.

'They'll be talking all night,' he said quietly with a nod in the direction of the table, 'I want to talk to you, come outside with me.'

Vaan was not the sort to give orders but Penelo did not feel she could refuse; she could not remember a time when she had seen Vaan look so grim and sombre. Then she remembered where she had seen such a look in his eyes before: the day his brother came home from Nalbina a raving madman, all skin and bones, and was branded a traitor.

Without a word she followed Vaan out of the front door of the farmhouse, and sure enough, no body at the table seemed to notice that either she or Vaan had left the room; even if they had noticed Penelo was not sure anyone would care over much.

Vaan flopped down on the front stoop of the door and patted the weathered stone beside him for Penelo to sit as well. The last thing she wanted was to sit squashed up beside him but she could not think of any way to avoid it that would not be simply petty or cruel.

She sat down huffily and without much grace. For a moment she and her best and oldest friend sat, pressed together, elbow to elbow, staring down the hilltop to the canopy of the dark forest they had not long escaped and outward to the reddish-purple jagged peaks of the mountains. Not for the first time Penelo found herself thinking what an ugly and uninviting place Bervenia was.

Just as the silence became unbearable Penelo opened her mouth at the exact same time as Vaan:

'I'm sorry.'

They both said together and turned to face each other so quickly in their mutual confusion that they banged noses. They jerked back and Penelo could not help but giggle and Vaan grinned lop-sided and rubbed his nose and just like that they were alright again; they were friends once more.

Still things needed to be said, 'I am sorry Vaan. I had no right to act like that. I really am sorry.'

Vaan shrugged dismissing both the apology and the reason for it; although the movement ended up nudging her shoulders as well because they were so close together.

'I should have told you months ago; I did want too but then,' his face contorted into an expression of bafflement and frustration, 'It's all kind of complicated.' He admitted finally.

'Yes,' Penelo said with a fair dollop of irony, 'I had sort of noticed that.'

Vaan grinned again in his loose lipped lazy way, 'I guess you have a pretty good reason to be furious with me. This,' he waved a hand to encompass the view and indicate the situation in one, 'is pretty much all my fault.'

Penelo did not really want to get into all that just then and she shook her head, clasping her friends hand and pulling it into her lap, 'How long Vaan? I mean, how did you and Ashe...?' she did not even know how to finish that sentence and she looked at Vaan helplessly.

Vaan looked just a little embarrassed and the rims of his ears went red, 'I guess it stated after you left for Archades. Balthier and Fran were involved in something I didn't want to be involved in,' Vaan said casually but the vague statement still made Penelo frown suspiciously, but now was not the time to be side-tracked and Vaan was still talking.

'I went home to Rabanastre and decided to go to one of those Royal dinners Ashe has, you know where anyone can come to the palace for a free meal and watch Ashe be served her meal on silver plate on her throne?'

Penelo nodded; she knew about those, though she had never seen what the attraction was herself. She guessed that Vaan must have been feeling really bored and lonely to have gone himself and she suspected that at least in part that was her fault. She had left him behind to go to Archades after all.

'So anyway I'm watching Ashe eat and she just looked so alone and bored out of her mind up there on this big throne with no one sitting by her and all these strangers watching her eat. So I decided to see if I could break into the palace that night and visit her in secret; cheer her up a little.'

Penelo resisted the impulse to roll her eyes; that was so typically a Vaan action. No one else would think it perfectly reasonable to break into a palace at night to visit a queen he hadn't spoken to in months just on the impulse of the moment.

'Were you caught?' Penelo asked wondering if Ashe hadn't had to save Vaan from her own guards and that was how everything had started. Vaan however looked scandalised by the mere suggestion.

'Penelo!' he glared at her, 'I'm a famous sky-pirate _of course_ I wasn't caught. Though when I walked into her bedroom from the balcony Ashe did nearly take my eye out when she threw a dagger at my head.' He admitted ruefully.

Penelo grinned; she could imagine Ashe doing something just like that. Vaan smiled too, but a little more softly at the good memory. 'After I managed to convince Ashe that I wasn't trying to steal from the palace we ended up just, you know, talking. She was as bored and lonely as I thought.'

He shook his head, 'I never realised how hard it was for her. All her councillors want is for her to marry and have arm loads of children. After everything she went through to free Dalmasca and still, really, no one thinks she can rule the kingdom on her own.'

Vaan shuffled his booted toes across the scraggy grass growing from out of the cracks in the paved path to the farmhouse. He turned to look sideways over to Penelo, expression once again serious. 'She was lonely and needed to talk to someone who knew the real Ashe, and not just the queen, and I guess I needed to talk to a friend too.'

Penelo felt awful, 'I'm so sorry Vaan. I shouldn't have left you like that.' She squeezed his hand, 'You could have come to Archades at any time.'

Vaan grinned and squeezed her hand back, in reassuring manner, 'Penelo it's alright. I was glad for you, doing something on your own, getting all that attention -and it all worked out in the end.' He added with a strangely enigmatic smile, 'I mean if you'd been around I wouldn't have had any reason to break into a queen's bedchamber in the middle of the night, would I?'

Penelo very firmly refused to let her imagination run away with that statement; it led to some stormy waters she did not want to dip a toe into right now. Vaan was watching her when Penelo dragged her thoughts into order and faced him once more.

'You don't need to worry Penelo.' He told her calmly, 'I know that Ashe is using me a little.'

Penelo stared at him. She tried to say something but no words came out. All she could do was gape at Vaan speechless. He shrugged again, casually; his shoulder brushing hers.

'She's a queen, she can't think like a normal person. She has to do what's best for Dalmasca; through me she gets to keep a link to Balthier, who, like now, can help her protect Dalmasca in ways that knights and soldiers and royal edicts can't. I don't mind being that link if it means good people get the help they need.'

If Penelo had been struck speechless before now she felt like she had been hit squarely in the centre of the forehead with a very big hammer. When had her best friend grown so wise, so practical, and knowledgeable; why was it that everyone seemed to know more than she did and be able to do more with the knowledge that they had then Penelo could ever hope to do?

Vaan rose to his feet and smiled vaguely, 'We should go back inside, eventually someone will notice we're missing.'

He added and reached down to help Penelo to her feet. She tried to think of something, anything, to say but could not. Her brain was a-whirl with thoughts and feelings she could not put a name too. All she could do was follow Vaan, the best friend she realised she did not really know anymore, back into the farmhouse.

Penelo was twisting in the breeze and drowning in a riptide that would not let her find her feet. She didn't think she'd ever find solid ground again. She didn't think she could ever honestly forgive Vaan for loving someone else in the way he had never loved her.

* * *

_Only life and death are life and death; everything else is merely flavouring._

Penelo woke up from her nap on the pallet in one of Arnault's daughter's rooms feeling, if not exactly refreshed, then at least less unbearably tense. The Vivaldino family had been very gracious and very hospitable providing Penelo with a meal, a hot bath, a bed and clean clothes to wear and their kindness had returned Penelo to something like her usual cheer.

She still did not know what was going on, or what Balthier and Fran had planned, but she felt a little more resigned to the fact that she probably wasn't going to find out until it was too late anyway. It was dark outside beyond the farmhouse, Penelo could see through the small window in the tiny bedroom under the eaves, and the daughter whose room it was (Tessina or Bettina -Penelo was ashamed to say she could not remember) was asleep in her bed.

Moving silently Penelo dressed in her borrowed clothes and snuck out of the room. She gravitated towards a dull golden light burning low in one of the rooms on the ground floor (the farm house was not tremendously large but it was tall with three floors altogether).

Penelo poked her head around the door where the light was coming from and found herself looking into the kitchen of the farmhouse, all exposed stonework and wood beams, a rather large, cold space.

Seated by the open fire of the hearth, which had cast the flickering illumination that had attracted Penelo in the first place, Balthier was tilted back on a chair, with his head against the wall and his eyes closed. He too was dressed in borrowed clothes of homespun and he looked so different without his pristine white shirt that it stopped Penelo in her tracks for a moment.

'Are you feeling in better spirits now?' Balthier drawled, having known not only that someone was watching him (even with his eyes closed) but precisely who it was as well. Penelo shuffled her feet awkwardly and then realised that she was acting like Vaan and stopped.

'I'm not going to apologise.' She stated mulishly and her words startled her as did the defiant tone of her voice, just a shade away from petulance. Balthier opened his eyes and looked at her amused.

'Well, well, defiance at last, hmm?'

Penelo glared at him, 'Don't tease me.' She didn't think she could survive it if he teased her. She felt like she was facing a hurricane of confusion that would blow away every illusion she had ever possessed.

Balthier's eyebrows rose up in majestic points of ironic surprise, his look of amusement only increased, but he did not say a word as Penelo strode over and stood by the hearth.

'I'm entitled to be angry.'

She pointed out, though in truth what she was entitled to be angry about and whom with, was not in fact what she was angry about...or at least not entirely. She was glad that she and Vaan had talked but her feelings were still wildly mixed about everything she now knew and everything she didn't. Balthier chuckled and snaked an arm around her waist reeling her in towards him until he could pull her up onto his lap.

'Entitled, are you?' he murmured, 'Hmm, and who granted you the entitlement to be rude to strangers and treat your dearest beloved so poorly, I wonder?'

Penelo frowned as she shifted in his lap so she could see his face, brushed as it was by the red gold firelight, 'I haven't treated you poorly.'

She argued, confused, and Balthier's lazy smirk flickered over his lips. The firelight cast a rosy glow over one side of his face and threw the other into sharp edged black shadow. The play of light and dark made his keen features look diabolical and unknowable.

He chuckled, 'Not I, sweetheart, I am not the one you love the most. I am talking about poor Vaan, who is, even now, languishing in the dulldrums of your displeasure and quite sorry for it.'

For a moment Penelo could only stare, dumbfounded, down on Balthier's face, which was relaxed and easy and quietly amused. How could he say he wasn't her beloved? Why would he say that? Had she not given every indication in action and deed and thought that she loved him with all she had?

Balthier reached up a hand and clicked her jaws closed and it was only then that she realised her lips had been parted on a silent exclamation of surprise and confusion.

'You really must stop doing that; you look quite gormless gaping at me with mouth wide.' He chided her good-naturedly, caressing her knee with one hand; she could feel the heat of his palm through the rough cotton of the borrowed skirt she wore.

'I don't...I'm not in...' she stammered and Balthier's smile grew deeper as he flicked a loose tendril of her hair behind her ear with his free hand. He clucked his tongue reproachfully.

'Not in love with Vaan? Yes my dear, you are. You have always loved, and will always love him, and that is why the thought of sharing him with another has you so bent out of shape.'

'But he and I...we're not...'

Penelo did not know whether to be furious or horrified in response to Balthier's calm and certain declaration that she loved another more than him. She wanted to be angry that he did not seem to care and at the same time she wanted to deny what he said and found that she could not honestly do so. She did love Vaan, and she had always loved him, just like Balthier said.

She glared at him, tense and rigid in his lap, 'We talked.' She told him stoutly, 'Vaan and I are fine now; we're friends just like we always have been.'

Balthier's dark eyes, enlivened by the reflections of the fire in the hearth, were smiling and confident, all knowing and strangely peaceful.

'Penelo, dearest, sex does not equal love and love does not, necessarily, equal sex. All the words that have ever been spoken in all Ivalice cannot change the simple fact of how you feel.'

Despite the gentleness of his tone and the tender smile curling his lips his blunt words jolted her and she tried to pull out of his hold, but Balthier would not let her; his arms holding her steady upon his lap.

'No, no more running away,' he said frankly, 'You need to hear this because I cannot afford to allow you the indulgence of any more tantrums.'

'_Indulgence_?'

Penelo could feel anger, like a trapped bird, rise in her chest, wings flapping in the tight confides of her ribcage and fighting to be free. She was furious and so horribly confused. She did not know what Balthier was talking about and she did not like it one bit.

Balthier pressed the fingers of his free hand to her lips to silence the protests she had begun to gabble in incoherent fits and starts. She jerked away and almost fell backwards off the chair. Balthier grabbed her by the wrists and pulled her upright. She struggled instinctively and he squeezed her wrists painfully in warning.

'I love _you.' _She hissed through her teeth, glaring at him and spitting like an angry Couerl cub caught in a hunter's snare.

'Hmm,' Balthier agreed coolly, 'I think you must, else you'd have no reason to put up with me.'

He waited until Penelo had calmed a little and then let go of her wrists only to clasp the backs of her thighs and shift her weight over him until her legs hung on either side of his lap and she straddled him. The position was highly intimate and Penelo felt the faintest of twirling in her stomach and abdomen despite herself, but it also allowed her to look him eye to eye.

With his hands idly massaging her hips and upper thighs Balthier regarded her seriously.

'Penelo that you are, or at least_ think_ you are, in love with me does not preclude you from loving another either equally well or more so than I. I love Fran, and have loved her with all my heart from the moment I saw her, but she and I will never be lovers.'

His words smacked her in the face like blows from a metal mace. Tears sprang to her eyelids and her heart split asunder, the blood freezing in her veins as her lungs contracted in agony. She felt sure that there must be some god, somewhere in the ether beyond the mortal realm of Ivalice that hated her; that was the only reason she should be forced to suffer like this.

'Of course,' Balthier continued in velvet smooth voice as if he was completely oblivious to the pain his cool, honeyed words had already caused her, 'that I love Fran does not stop me from also loving _you_.'

Penelo, who had been fighting back tears of pain and anguish, now blinked and stared at Balthier.

'Did you just...' he had never used _that_ word in conjunction with her. He had never looked her straight in the eye and admitted he loved her. Sometimes she'd imagined that was what he meant when he complimented her or told her he was 'fond of her' but she had never really thought he would ever simply say it.

Balthier pulled her a little closer to him, lacing his fingers together behind her back, 'Hmm, yes I surprised myself a little there.' He shook his head unfastening his fingers to let his hands glide over her sides meditatively, 'But my feelings are neither here nor there and that was not the point I was trying to make.'

'What point?'

Penelo was all at sea and she was also finding it hard to breathe. Balthier's hands continued to glide up and down her sides, fingers swirling over the crest of her hips at the bottom and his thumbs just tickling the curve of her breasts at the top of the motion. It was, to say the least, distracting and Penelo already felt as if her hair should be standing on end and shooting sparks because of all the bottled up confusion, tension, and anxiety within her.

'My point,' Balthier murmured casually, voice untouched by any external stimuli or discernable emotion, 'is that love is a fundamentally pointless emotion. It blows where it lists and lacks any sort of logic or longevity.'

He met her eyes, 'If you keep placing all your hopes on finding happiness and fulfilment in one true and ever-lasting love, or some similar nonsense, my dear, you will destroy everything of any value you possess.'

Penelo tried to formulate a response, but even on her best days she was hardly equipped to match wits with Balthier verbally and now she most definitely wasn't at her best. Before she could string together the syllables of speech Balthier clasped her waist firmly and scooted her off his lap, rising to his own feet with a lazy stretch and yawn.

'I told you once that my interest in you would only last until you lost that certain, purity, that _innocence_ inside you that so attracted me, do you remember?'

He stood by the doorway to the kitchen and addressed her without turning to look at her.

'Yes.' She whispered.

Penelo did remember that conversation, so long ago, at the Ridorana Cataract, when she had confronted him over the sketches of her he had drawn without her permission. It all seemed a life time ago now and she could not imagine what it had to do with anything; surely he himself had already done away with her innocence?

'Well, you are losing your spark, Penelo; your light is growing dim.' He glanced over his shoulder at her before departing the kitchen for the shadows waiting beyond the ruddy light cast by the hearth, 'We all lose hope eventually, it's the price of life, but don't lose yours by chasing in others that which can only be found in yourself.'

'What? – What does that mean?' Penelo demanded stopping in the threshold of the kitchen doorway, the crackle of the hearth fire at her back. Balthier was almost consumed by the shadows of the farmhouse darkness, but she saw him wave one hand in disdainful dismissal.

'Oh no, darling, you'll find no answers from me.'

He called melodiously as he began to ascend the stairs for the room he would be weathering the night in, 'In fact I think until you can answer the question yourself it would be best if we no longer consort.'

She watched him climb the stairs, trying to pick out his darkness from the greater darkness of the unfamiliar house. Once she was sure he was gone beyond sight or hearing she dropped to her knees on the flagstone floor and silently wept her heart out.


	13. Chapter 13

_Our words are all we have and they are never enough. _

Balthier was half way up the second flight of stairs when he realised that perhaps, he had made a miscalculation. Rickety and old, the stairs sounded none too stable as they creaked upward towards the shadow of the converted attic wherein his bed roll was waiting for him on the floor of one of the empty box rooms that was barely large enough to serve as a cupboard let alone a sleeping chamber for a grown man.

The reality of the leading man rarely lived up to his own form of self-promotion. There was a lesson there, perhaps; something about wages of sin, but Balthier had more pressing concerns than the state of his own existence to worry over.

He'd said the wrong thing to the wrong audience; his silver tongue, his greatest weapon, had misfired somewhere and in someway. He needed to consider. He needed to review.

_We all lose hope eventually, it's the price of life, but don't lose yours by chasing in others that which can only be found in yourself. I think until you can answer the question yourself it would be best that we no longer consort. _

Balthier froze, mid-ascent. The house was silent, or not silent, but a pall of heavy quiet hung over the noises of slumbering humes throughout the house. Almost like a thick canvas cover thrown over a birdcage. Movement and little sounds; signs of life buried under a thick cover of artificial stillness.

Balthier thought about what he'd said to Penelo and thought about what he'd _meant _to say and compared and contrasted the actuality with the ideal.

'Damn.'

He swore very softly, wincing as he realised that, to anyone who did not have virtue of telepathy, his words to Penelo could be easily misinterpreted. Or, possibly, interpreted accurately but without the benefit of context – at least Balthier's own particular brand of contextual awareness that required one to recognise that he rarely thought before he spoke and was at his cruellest when at his most careless.

Somehow he suspected that Penelo (and perhaps ninety-five percent of the female populace of Ivalice) would not have such an awareness.

'……damn.'

He almost pivoted on his heel to descend the stairs again but didn't. Perhaps he had said the wrong things. Perhaps he had spoken without consideration for his audience's sensibilities but it was too late now; what was done could not be undone and apologies were trite indulgences.

Balthier continued up the stairs and ignored the nagging suspicion, which was simply ludicrous self-deceit, that he could hear her sobbing from the ground floor of the farmhouse. He stopped again, poised to land his leading foot on the attic landing, poised to reach the peak of his ascent.

Looking back was a mug's game and Balthier had never been given to making an about face. He was known for his decisiveness, even if he was decisively wrong he was still resolute in his error. He did not turn back, he did not recant.

He never went back only ever forward, onwards, away. Even if he didn't like the look of the horizon he forged on regardless; he never wanted to go backwards, he never looked back.

Standing at the top of the stairs with the knowledge that he had said the right things in entirely the wrong way, his meaning obscured by poor choice of words, Balthier found he was no longer sure of his direction of travel. He had the terrible fear that he had inadvertently taken any number of steps backwards.

Balthier slowly, anxiously, looked over his shoulder, back down the stairs, breaking his own cherished rule. He hesitated. It was just conceivable that he'd made a mistake after all, somewhere along the way.

* * *

_We burn so bright but for so short a time. We are all shadows in the end. _

She sat like a broken marionette with strings cut on the bare floor of the farmhouse; her face was wet with tears but she was not sobbing any longer. Instead she stared towards the closed front door of Vivaldino's abode with blind eyes that all but glowed in the thin ambient light from the windows with the glassy sheen of unshed tears.

I love you, he had said, and then within moments, as if by virtue of admitting his feelings he felt able to abandon her. He loved her and now he was _bored_ with her? Was it because he loved her that he no longer wanted her?

It seemed to Penelo apiece with his character that he would disdain anything he deigned to love. Almost as if to say that he didn't want to associate with anything he could love. It made no logical sense but so much about Balthier was fishhooks and paper-cuts under a veneer of silk and velvet and always had been.

'I get scared, you see.'

Penelo spoke up, the person standing in the doorway to the kitchen at the end of the corridor made no sound to betray her position but Penelo was a veteran of more battles than most professional soldiers and she knew when she was being watched. Fran's heels clicked across the bare floorboards as she approached.

Penelo pulled herself up to her feet with arthritic slowness; for all the world it seemed she had aged a hundred years in the space of moments. The only energy was in her hands which wrung the hem of her borrowed skirts over and over again in nervous tension.

She faced Fran who was perhaps the only hope she had of understanding what had befallen her and why; a part of her was curled up and bleeding inside her soul but a larger part wanted to know why this had happened and why now.

'Before the war I never used to think about the future; my family weren't poor but we were….' she struggled to find the words, a little frown bunching her brow, 'we were grateful for what we had when we had it. There didn't seem any need to worry about the distant future; it seemed almost like ingratitude to do that.'

Fran nodded her head just slightly as if to confirm that she was listening to Penelo. Her ageless face was smooth and expressionless. Penelo had no idea if Fran had heard the whole exchange between Balthier and she, or if she had merely stepped back into the house from the kitchen back door to find Penelo crumpled in petticoats on the hallway floor.

'After the war came and my family died I was just so desperate to cling onto what I had left, to Vaan and Kytes and Filo, and anything that reminded me of what I'd lost, that I would have gone along with anything to keep what I had just for that day. Tomorrow was always my enemy, after the war.'

Fran said nothing at all in response and the only sounds were those of an old house sighing as it settled ever deeper and more comfortably into its foundations. Penelo frowned a little abstractedly. She could not say that Fran's silence surprised her but she longed for some response; even further rejection would be better than Fran's impassivity.

'That's why I wouldn't leave Vaan when you and Balthier took Ashe to Raithwall's Tomb – or anytime afterwards, even though I never thought that Vaan and I should have been there -it wasn't really our war and I didn't want to fight.'

She wiped her tears from her face and snuffled. Her cheeks felt sticky with salt tears and she wished she didn't cry so easily; she wished she could stop crying for _him_ when he did not deserve it.

Penelo's bottom lip wobbled, her fists clenched around the folds of her borrowed homespun skirt with the dropped hem and the frayed seams. She blinked in rapid succession and tilted her chin upwards; it wasn't defiance, she just didn't want to cry in front of Fran - who, for all she knew, had put Balthier up to all this.

Somewhere, beyond the slumbering false silence of the crowded house rendered inert in the midnight calm, a clock began to chime the turning of one day into another. Tomorrow, Penelo's great adversary, had come. The sound punctuated the silence between she and Fran, each chime almost indicative of the great divide that separated them.

'You and he,' Fran began meditatively, 'as different in your ways as night and day. You mourn the loss of each day and he lives only for tomorrow. Your past is your strength and his only a burden he cannot escape.'

'I know.' Penelo whispered. She may not have great artistry of thought but she did recognise that, at least.

Penelo lived for the moment and mourned yesterday while all the time fearing tomorrow; she had been taught in a hard school to fear each new day and the challenges it could bring, knowing herself helpless to change things. Balthier dreamed in terror of those days that had passed (she knew because she had once witnessed one of his nightmares) and sought to always control the moment, while living, in a strange and suavely desperate way, for the morrow. He lived to bury his past and Penelo lived to grieve for hers.

She turned away, a choked sob clamped between her teeth. 'It's hopeless then; that's why he doesn't want me. Because I can't be what he is and I don't ever want to be.'

Fran cocked her head to the side curiously, 'Said this did he?'

Something in her voice, the faintest hint of surprise, made Penelo look at her sharply. 'He said that my light was dimming and he will not 'consort' with me any longer.'

Fran frowned, her feathery brows dipping, 'You speak truth as you hear it but I question that his intent was what you think. He has no will to leave you; else he would never had gone to such lengths to draw you back again.'

Penelo laughed harshly and the sound, cracked and raw, rang loud in the slumbering silence pervading the house. 'He told me that love was a useless and pointless emotion but that he did love me anyway, then he told me that I was 'chasing something in others that can only be found in myself'.' She quoted bitterly.

Fran watched her with old, wise eyes, 'And know you not to his meaning?'

Penelo shook her head and her hair slithered over her shoulders, unbound and tangled, 'No, and when I asked that's when he said that I'd have no answers from him and he would not 'consort' with me until I could answer the question myself.'

Fran's reaction was almost gratifying. She shook her head so that her silver hair tumbled about her shoulders, 'Fool.'

Fran almost snapped, 'Oft times I forget how young he is; cynicism does not substitute well for maturity.'

Penelo stepped forward tentatively, 'Fran, do you know why he said those things to me?'

A little flicker of hope cradled in her chest ignited, quivering like a candle in the wind. Balthier was not an easy man to know and almost impossible to love with ease or comfort. He was changeable as the wind; gentle and luxuriant as a tropic breeze one moment and devastating as a hurricane the next, but Penelo had dedicated so much of herself to the project of loving him that she did not want it all to be for nought.

'Know you what Balthier fears?' Fran asked her keenly, those alien red eyes oddly intent as she regarded Penelo.

Penelo blinked and then, before she even knew what she was about, she supplied an answer as if she had always known it, 'Failure. He fears failing the people he cares about just like he thinks he failed his father.'

Fran almost smiled, a glint of pride in her eyes that warmed Penelo; Fran was pleased that she understood her partner that well and Penelo needed to feel she understood something at least.

'And what do you fear, above all things?' Fran asked her and Penelo was plunged once more into deep uncertainty.

'I'm scared.' She whispered, 'I'm scared of choosing; if I make a choice about tomorrow, I'll lose everything. I can't choose.'

She had learned that lesson years ago in the occupation. It had been her choice that had stolen her family from her; one choice made in a split second, made without knowing she made a choice at all and it had robbed her of her past, her family, and every security she had ever known.

'You don't understand,' she gasped suddenly panicked, suddenly desperate for someone to understand the secret fear she had lived with for so long. She was shaking like a leaf in a gale and her fingers coiled into the folds of the ugly brown skirt she wore.

'When my parents died….when the Imperials shot them down, thinking they were rebels…..I should have been there with them…..' she made a noise, like a little wounded animal and her eyes swam with tears.

'Instead, when the protest riot erupted after the order to move all Rabanastrans to Low Town, you left your family and went to Vaan, seeking to ensure his safety. You survived the massacre of your family because you chose to go to Vaan.'

Penelo stared up at Fran white-lipped the calm and unemotional recitation of one of her most horrifying memories struck her to the core, 'How…?'

'Vaan.' Fran told her bluntly. Penelo could only stare at her, the distant ticking of the clock pounding in her mind.

'You do not give him credit enough Penelo; he is very protective of you.' Fran shook her head, 'He was very adamant that Balthier know of your pain, suspected he did that else wise Balthier would make bleed old wounds.'

'He knows? He knew all along?' She could barely countenance it – why had he never said a word?……but then, of course, Balthier had nothing but abhorrence for the past and would never speak of it. Still, she did not know why Fran would reveal that now.

'I _chose,' _she whispered, 'and because I chose my best friend I lost my mother and my father and my baby brother and my sister-in-law and her babies and…'

'You fear tomorrow's uncertainty. You fear the course uncharted. You fear decisions when all they have done before is constrain and steal from you. You seek to bury yourself in others and follow them for fear of striking out alone.'

Penelo could hear her heart beating, hard and solid in her chest. she heard the truth in Fran's assertion driven into the silence with such dispassionate strength they seemed alike to inscriptions carved into stone tablets.

'Balthier's silver tongue does fail him, as it oft does when he attempts honesty. Long has your dependency upon him alarmed him; it is not rejection that motivates his clumsy words, but instead a wish to see you be more than _you_ would have you be.'

Fran told her firmly, but kindly enough, and stepped forward to brush one long hand just briefly over her shoulder; brushing Penelo's own honey yellow hair behind her back.

'He does not seek your devotion nor crave it.' Fran continued with relentless, but not unkind, honesty.

'He cannot make you happy if you are not happy in yourself. That is the question that only you may answer. You cannot choose the right path so he denies you his; that you might learn to fly unaided. His intent was to free you of a servitude he does not need from you…… alas his methods are, oft as is, flawed.'

'He is not bored with me?'

Penelo did not know how to respond to all Fran had told her and instead settled on the simplest of questions. Occupying the attention of the leading man made Penelo happy. It was a source of excitement and pleasure to her to be the object of his affections and beneficiary of his generosity. She could not, for the moment, think beyond that though she would give a lot of thought to what Fran had told her, that was for sure.

Fran shook her head with a mixture of affectionate chiding and indulgent amusement as she glided past Penelo towards the stairs.

'You cannot walk his path; it is too circuitous for any to walk easily, he especially, but were you to make your own way, think I, that he might well chose to follow. To chase shadows is folly when one holds a light all your own.'

Without a backwards glance Fran ascended the stairs, graceful and stately, her heels knocking against the wooden treads as she rose up into the thick shadow of the upper floors of the house.

Penelo was left alone with her thoughts again but this time at least she felt a little better about it. Tomorrow, she knew, was fast approaching and with it would come a new dawn and a need to make her own choices.

_You are a beacon and you burn very brightly indeed; especially in shadow. _

Balthier had told her that not so very long ago. Penelo tilted her chin up defiantly as she regarded the shadows rolling down the stairs from the top of the house; perhaps it was time she reminded him of that?

* * *

_We lead only to follow and follow only to lead; we are always chasing the people we think we are._

Balthier woke up with a heavy head and aching eyeballs and wondered not for the first time, as he went about his morning exercises and tried to work out the cramps acquired through uncomfortable floor sleeping, if it would not be prudent to quit the exciting and glamorous life of a sky pirate for some occupation that allowed him to sleep in a bloody bed now and again and did not require him to dabble in the internal strife of small nations.

He had to shake a house spider the size of a small rodent out of his boot as he dressed and pull cobwebs from his hair. Yes, he was growing exceedingly tired of all this malarkey. It just wasn't any fun anymore; a man goes out of his way in the pursuit of Ivalice wide peace once and suddenly everyone expects him to make it his constant business. It was aggravating in the extreme.

Maybe he should give villainy a try? Go the whole way and truly betray friends and associates alike, going out in a melodramatic blaze of infamy the like of which Ivalice had never seen before?

He was still contemplating a change in vocation when he rejoined the rest of the unusual household in the large, draughty and cavernous kitchen. Fran gave him a droll look pregnant with some manner of reproach she did not feel like elucidating in mixed company as soon as he entered.

When his partner's gaze cut sideways to Penelo, who was chewing determinedly on the vile soda bread on her plate and not looking at him, Balthier suspected he knew what (or who) they would be speaking about as soon as Fran could get him alone. Balthier repressed a sigh; what he wouldn't give for the quiet life.

Still, there was that little cliché that a man reaps what he sows, but Balthier decided to ignore that as he did most pieces of received wisdom he did not like the sound of.

As he took a place leaning against the wall of the kitchen (the table was full) the lady of the house or one of her daughters (Balthier had not bothered to learn to tell them apart) handed him a plate containing one rather burned fried egg and some of the inedible bread.

For a moment he stared at the contents of the plate before inconspicuously putting the plate onto a shelf behind him and taking a step away from the unappetising breakfast to deny all association; yes, he was a fussy eater, but he also had standards.

A commotion as one of Vivaldino's young sons burst through the backdoor of the kitchen helped Balthier keep his mind off the lack of available edible sustenance. The child was squawking away in Rozzarian and waving a wax sealed envelope about in his grimy fist.

Vivaldino snatched the missive from his over-excitable child's eager grip. The man looked grim and concerned. 'My son tell me dat dis letter, delivered in dead of night, to my friend de millers door, is addressed t'you' he looked pointedly towards Balthier 'It bears the seal of Dalmasca.'

Balthier stepped forward to receive the letter, aware of all eyes fixed upon him with curiosity (particularly Vaan -who looked just a mite jealous) Balthier ignored those curious eyes and broke the heavy red wax seal without a thought as he opened up the single sheet of paper.

_Balthier,_

_I am sending this letter to you by trusted means and hope that you will destroy all evidence of this correspondence and ensure that those around you forget to ever having seen this letter._

_Al-Cid is suspicious but can prove nothing against me. He also suspects my suspicions against him and acts to counter those by inviting me to join him to find impartial resolution to the Bervenia 'difficulties' as he so calls them. A formal letter offering Dalmasca's fair and impartial mediation between Arnault Vivaldino and his followers and the Avenlieu family, written by myself, will be arriving by courier some time in the new day. _

_I believe that House Margrace would be happy to string up the Avenlieu family for the mess they have made of administering Bervenia but I fear that Duke Avenlieu knows this and a man with nothing to lose is a dangerous man. He has made more than one loose comment over fears for the 'security' of the magicite mine. I am sure I do not need to enunciate to you what that may mean. _

_To this end I would suggest that Vaan, Basch, and Vivaldino, as well as whoever else is with you, agrees to the mediation and presents themselves at the Avenlieu manse. I will guarantee their safety. I trust that you will ensure that a happy solution can be found for all our sakes beyond such mediation, but I would strongly recommend, pirate, that you not dally for I fear Duke Avenlieu is treacherous indeed. _

_Ashe._

Fran had stepped over to him and read the letter over his shoulder. Neatly Balthier folded the note and walked over to the lit fire in the grate, dropping the paper into the flames without hesitation.

'Fears for the security of the mine?'

Fran arched a brow ironically, crossing her arms over her chest and standing hip-cocked.

'Hmm, indeed,' Balthier straightened slowly from the fire, aware of the laser intensity of the eyes on his back. 'Devious little monarch, our queen; she has somewhat forced my hand.'

'So we are to surrender?' Fran asked and only he could hear the hidden undertones of her words, the code that was not a code that passed between them. No one else in the room dared to so much as chew their mouthfuls as they waited for his answer.

'Oh, yes. The Bervenia resistance, Vaan, and Basch, should obey the mediation request when it arrives.'

The was a smattering of voices, exclamations from those who had no idea of the content of the letter, now burnt to ash and melted wax in the grate. Balthier waited, smirk in place, for the rowdy audience to quiet down.

'Of course as the only person actually guilty of a crime, assuming we disregard civil disobedience and open rebellion as an offense,' he nodded ironically to Vivaldino who was growing increasingly red in the face, 'I will not be turning myself in.'

After all, he added silently, as he met Fran's droll regard above the heads of the wildly gesticulating and argumentative group of people crowding the kitchen, it would make blowing up the magicite mine even more a chore if forced to do so from a prison cell.

Caught in his silent communion with his partner in crime, and considering all he would have to do and the timescale with which he had to do it, Balthier did not notice the intent, almost fearsome, look Penelo was giving him from the table.

He would come to regret that lapse in due diligence.


	14. Chapter 14

_Chaos is a butterfly._

'Dis is treachery! In good faith I take you into my home an dis is how you repay me? Me, you tell to surrender to my enemy after all de Avenlieu 'ave done?'

'Ashe will protect you; Ashe is not the enemy. Right Balthier?'

'Balthier I demand to know what you are scheming; I like this not. What did the lady Ashe write within that letter?'

Penelo sat silently and unobtrusively at the table and let the recriminations and angry questions fly over her head. Her whole intent was settled on Balthier who blithely ignored everyone else in the room as he communed silently with Fran. Penelo's heart was pitter-pattering in her chest like a trapped butterfly.

She did not know what Balthier was planning to do, but then she did not need to know. She only needed to follow him and stop whatever nefarious and convoluted scheme he was about to embark on.

Balthier's dry, urbane voice cut a swathe across the raised voices, silencing everyone and demanding full attention with a haughtily raised eyebrow and a sly half-smirk on his face.

'Vivaldino, you asked for arms and assistance in your rebellion. I gave you Vaan and I gave you munitions. You asked for a way to end the bloodshed and now the Queen of Dalmasca is here to do just that. Really, your ingratitude is astounding.'

Fran had said something about 'fears for the mine's security'. Penelo knew absolutely that the mine, wherever that was exactly, would be Balthier's target. What exactly he would do there and why she could not even begin to guess and somewhat feared to speculate.

'Balthier, the letter man, what did the Lady Ashe wish to tell you and why did you burn the evidence?' Basch's gaze was hard with suspicion.

Balthier, standing by the fireplace with Fran at his side, the early morning sunlight streaming in from the far window and stroking over half his body and brushing one cheek in gold, looked like a man in his element. He held all the cards, dictated the steps of their dance, and controlled the moment with perfect artistry.

'Judge Magister Gabranth, you of all men should be able to understand that her majesty cannot be seen to show one side in a mediation more favour than the other, or to be found in correspondence with a wanted criminal. The letter simply informed me of the offer of mediation, no more, no less.'

It could be anything, Penelo reasoned thinking hard as she scrutinised Balthier's amused and vaguely smug expression, watching the pale, watery sunlight dancing over his body, his purpose in the mine could be anything at all; it could be anything or nothing or everything in-between.

He might go to the mine to sure up the mine's infrastructure or evacuate the miners, or maybe he was going to kidnap the mine foreman as leverage in the mediation or maybe……

……_.Fears for mine security……_

……..oh, no. Oh, no, no, no……surely he wouldn't? Penelo felt her eyes widening and her face growing cold as the blood left her head in one great downward surge.

Balthier, who had been cheerfully ignoring all questions and flatly refusing to explain himself in any other way than with insulting condescension had nevertheless kept half his attention on her; now he frowned and looked back at her sharply catching the change in her expression.

Penelo opened her mouth to speak and something in Balthier's eyes, a lightening bolt of pure, cold darkness strangled off her words. She hesitated and then decided that she owed him nothing and would speak out anyway, but by that point Fran had spoken.

'The mediation is the only way peace can be restored; magicite was the start of this war, but it be merely symptom in truth.'

She glanced at Vivaldino, 'Is it not better to have opportunity to speak of the crimes of the Avenlieu family before Dalmasca, Rozzaria and,' she nodded to Basch, 'Archadia? Is that not what you fought for, that truth should be known and injustice punished in light of day?'

The fight went out of Vivaldino after that. It was not that he was happy about surrendering to mediation, but he could not argue too strenuously when he had long stated that freedom from oppression mattered more to him than laying claim to the magicite mine all to himself. Penelo rather suspected that Vivaldino wanted mine and freedom both but he was not a bad man and would take freedom over wealth where he could.

Equally Basch and Vaan both wanted to be reunited with Ashe for subtly different reasons and so it was that when the official envoy came to declare the mediation request formally Vivaldino had already informed his followers to scatter and made ready to depart alongside Basch and Vaan.

'Someone should stay here with the children and Mrs Vivaldino.' Penelo spoke up for the first time just as Vaan turned to her. The expectation, Penelo knew, was that she would go with Vaan and Basch to the mediation.

'Huh?'

Vaan blinked at her and Balthier had already turned his back on the room and was standing by the kitchen window with his arms crossed gazing abstractedly out towards the distant magicite hills, now he turned back to her sharply once more; suspicion writ large over his features.

'But Balthier and Fran will be staying here.' Vaan argued weakly and Penelo wondered if he was a better liar than she thought he was or if he really hadn't worked out what the pirates real objective was all along.

'Yes,' Fran said mendaciously, 'we shall remain here. Balthier is correct, our presence at the mediation will not help matters, better that our involvement remain mere conjecture and suspicion.'

'Well, you still don't need me at the mediation,' Penelo pointed out staunchly, 'I mean, technically, no one knows I'm here and I don't have any diplomatic powers or anything of value to a negotiation.'

She shot a look Balthier's way with an emphatic message: _try and talk your way around that you manipulative, secretive, amoral cad. _

Fran also shot a look Balthier's way. Penelo was gratified to see that the pirate was scowling but he swiftly erased any trace of his displeasure from his countenance. He flapped a hand with irritable dismissal and contrived to smirk.

'Oh let the girl do what she wills,' he murmured expansively (and not a little condescendingly) and then he cut a very sharp look Penelo's way; a look of obsidian annoyance that lacerated the air between them.

'She'll not get in the way.' he added with a venomous purr in his throat and a coldly sweet smile.

Penelo found a smile of equal disingenuousness curving her lips, 'Oh, I'll try.'

She murmured pleasantly but so softly that only someone reading her lips would make out her ambiguous statement. Balthier heard her just fine and something unreadable flashed in his eyes but was quickly swallowed away in deceit. Fran looked from Penelo to Balthier impassively but Penelo thought that her posture was just a little uneasy.

Eventually the peripheral players in the drama left, Vaan looking suspicious and uncomfortable about leaving her but Penelo barely spared him a glance. She was exactly where she needed to be and she was not remotely uneasy.

Balthier gallantly offered to assist the ladies of Vivaldino's house to clear away the breakfast stuffs but Penelo, who would ordinarily have rushed to clear the table, instead followed Fran as the Viera slipped quietly away towards the top of the house.

It was risky leaving Balthier unsupervised when he could escape at anytime but Penelo suspected that Balthier would not attempt anything without Fran in tow. Fran undoubtedly knew that she was being followed but she did not react.

Penelo did not say anything either as she followed the Viera up the stairs to the second floor where she entered into the room she had spent the night in. Penelo dashed up the stairs, the incantation already tripping subliminally under her tongue.

She whirled into the threshold to find Fran standing in the centre of the room poised with her own spell. Both women finished their incantations at the same time. There was a split second, a frozen sliver of time, between the casting and the impact when all things were held in the balance.

Penelo faced Fran and Fran faced her; neither knew who would win this impromptu magick showdown. Fran had taught Penelo most of what she knew of magick; Fran had instructed her on cure magick, defensive magicks, offensive magick and most importantly, status magick. Fran had been the instructor but would the pupil now supplant the tutor?

The moment between one second and the next, where everything and nothing could happen, elapsed. Penelo braced herself for the heavy, dull languid stupor of Fran's Sleep spell to invade her limbs and blanket her mind.

She waited for the first creeping chills of failure but instead it was Fran's eyes that widened for just a split second before her lids fell heavily to half close over an expression of emphatic surprise and Fran's long legs crumpled underneath her.

Penelo stepped forward into the small room with its patch of sunlight glowing over dull, untreated and dust laden floorboards. She reached out and struggled to hold Fran's weight and lower the Viera gently down onto the thin mattress laid out across the floor.

'I'm sorry Fran but I know whose side you are on and I won't let anyone stop me from stopping him.'

Stroking the short curly tufts of hair that framed Fran's face from her mouth and closed eyes, Penelo whispered another layer of sleep compulsion upon the Viera and then another on top of the first; hopefully Fran would not wake for sometime.

Swiftly (she suspected that Balthier would be coming soon) Penelo rooted through Fran's travelling pack. Underneath a collection of curative potions and the like she found a tightly bound coil of rope and something else. A palm sized box-like object made of lightweight alloy with a crystal light shard set into the top. Two glass tubes were attached to the box one filled with a reddish powder and the other with some manner of clear liquid too thick and viscous to be water.

'Oh, no,' Penelo held the object in her palm and her hand began to shake forcing her to hastily lay the item aside and clasp up the rope. She was not so much horrified as horribly disappointed. Had she really been so dreadfully deceived as to Balthier's character?

Hating the necessity of what she was doing all the while Penelo went about securing and binding Fran's sleeping wrists together with the rope and then fastening the ends of the rope to an exposed water pipe that ran up the outward facing wall of the small room. When Fran awoke she would make easy work of the rope but it would take her a few minutes and Penelo would need all the extra minutes she could muster.

Penelo had just shoved the 'item' back into the pack and shouldered the heavy bag onto her back, closing the door of the room behind her as she entered the hallway, when one of Vivaldino's daughters clattered up the stairs.

'Oh,' the girl said looking surprised to see Penelo dressed and loaded down with the huge pack, 'Are you well?' the girl asked in broken Ivalic tongue.

'Yes, thank you,' Penelo smiled, 'But Fran, my friend, is not. She is sleeping and asked not to be disturbed.'

The girl, who had a mane of thick dark curls and was about fifteen years old, frowned as she made sense of Penelo's statement.

'Oh, but I am to ask if de lady is ready.' The girl blushed and averted her dark eyes giddily, 'de master Balthier ask it of me.'

Penelo could feel her teeth gritting as her smile grew strained, 'Oh, don't worry. I know what the _master Balthier _wants and I have it right here.' She shrugged her shoulders to refer to the pack.

The girl looked at her a little suspiciously but smiled tremulously, 'Den I to tell you dat you meet him at bottom of hill. You have special errand to run, no?'

Penelo's face was hurting with the tension in her smile, 'Yes. Oh, yes,' she agreed wondering if her grimace looked anywhere near as fraught upon her face as it felt, 'A very special errand.'

Leaving the confused girl on the landing Penelo hurried as quickly as she could down the stairs, trying not to fall forward as the weight of the pack affected her equilibrium. She left the house and pounded down the hill without a backward glance. Fury gave her wings.

* * *

_When good men stray evil abounds; when bad men restrain good deeds remain undone. _

Balthier, lounging in the pleasant sunlight while sitting on a flat rock at the bottom of the hill, had time only to widen his eyes in shock and dawning apprehension before Penelo loosed the bolt of thundara she had been holding under her tongue all the way from the farmhouse.

The mid level Thunder spell (the milder option – she initially thought to blast him to the next life with a ball of Holy) struck him directly dead centre in the chest. He went over backwards, head over heels, off the rock and onto the uneven ground beyond. Without thought Penelo shrugged out of the heavy, cumbersome pack and all but vaulted over the smooth, flat rock to land more or less on top of the stunned Balthier.

He groaned as her fists drove into his chest and she sat on his stomach. There was a scorch mark across the dull, rough fabric of his borrowed shirt. Penelo was fiercely gratified to see it.

'Did you really think I'd let you do something so evil?'

She demanded oddly calm as she looked down into his narrowed, vaguely pained dark eyes. Balthier reclaimed his breath and looked up at her disdainfully, managing to give the impression that he was quite at ease with her sitting on his chest (and not suffering mild burns from his slight electrocution).

'I have no idea what you are talking about.'

He told her lazily as Penelo tried to hold his wrists in hers. She didn't think he'd attempt a casting but Balthier was nothing if not unpredictable. Still he did not resist her in the slightest and instead an amused smile twitched his lips as she dithered between clasping his hands and keeping her own free for quick defence against him.

'By the way where is Fran?' he asked frowning a little suspiciously as he shifted fractionally underneath her, ostensibly doing no more than making himself comfortable as her weight on him bore them both down into the thick bed of long grass and spongy heather that quilted the undulating valley.

'Fran is sleeping.' Penelo told him flatly, 'She suddenly felt very, very tired.'

Her gaze dared him to react and although Balthier's eyes widened as he understood what must have happened to his partner he did not say a word; in fact the ghost of a sly smile playing over the edges of his mouth seemed to widen and she thought she saw the glimmer of laughter in his eyes.

'I know what you're planning.' She told him pointedly annoyed that he did not seem to be taking the situation seriously enough.

Balthier gave her a droll look in return before the smile peaked out once more for just a second. His eyes were heavy lidded and his posture relaxed. Penelo, looking down into that almost sultry expression felt somewhat self-conscious sitting on his chest.

'Is that so?' he purred unconcerned, laughter in his words as if this was all some grand joke. 'Then perhaps you'll enlighten me for I am sure I have no idea as to what you refer.'

'Oh, really?' Penelo could feel a shrill laugh bubble up in her throat and she contorted her body, bowing her spine and twisting around, to reach back to the pack and wrenched the box with the tubes out of the depths of the bag.

'Maybe this will enlighten you?' she crowed, eyes hot and wide with the effort not to cry. She brandished the crystal adorned box wildly in one hand. Balthier's eyes crinkled at the corners and his lips flexed with suppressed laughter.

'Do be careful.' He drawled after a moment catching her hand holding the explosive device in his own. 'That is a sophisticated fakery you are flailing around.'

He sounded profoundly unconcerned that she had discovered the bomb. Penelo, furious with him, did not register the meaning of his words, as she stared at him from inches away. She stared into the face of a man she almost worshipped, whose soft full bottom lip and expressive features still ignited in her a dizzying lust; a man who was going to commit a heinous criminal act without any discernable guilt at all.

'You are going to blow up the mine; you planned to do it all along.' she whispered. Balthier, to her horror, smiled lazily and reached up to clasp her hips in his hands; the bomb resting on the bed of resilient grass beside them.

He shifted a little underneath her and despite everything, despite the fact that she was almost sick with the shame he was incapable of, Penelo's body responded to that lazy, lascivious movement.

'Not with that I'm not,' he looked highly mirthful as he gestured to the bomb, 'Darling that thing is a dud, a mere prop – I am not intending to blow up anything.'

'_What_?' she squawked and Balthier chuckled joyously.

It hurt terribly; she felt betrayed as she watched him laugh, deftly flinging the false explosive device away from them where it bounced across the heather.

She felt betrayed not because he used her and manipulated her affections and insulted and scorned her whenever the mood took him but because for all his faults, for his mercurial changes in mood, she had still believed he was a good man; a good man employing bad methods, but a good man all the same.

The day was windy, but the air smelled sweetly of heather and grass and pure sunlight. Above their heads the shadow of fast moving cumulus clouds cast the grassy, rock strewn valley into a patch work of liquid sunlight and rapid shadows. Gold and black, light and dark, shadow and light all held in swirling balance in this meadow. To Penelo that dance of light and dark seemed an apt backdrop as she stared Balthier down (literally).

'Do you really expect me to believe anything you say?'

She asked him sullenly; of course she rather thought he was telling the truth about the bomb – he wouldn't have thrown it so casually aside had it been real. Still for so long she had believed _everything_ he said. Even when he contradicted himself she believed him; she was tired of feeling like his fool.

Balthier was not smiling now and his dark eyes were opaque and quiet; his hands moved, fingers flexing and kneading her waist. The action was soothing to her body and torment to her mind.

'Yes,' his answer surprised her, 'You will believe me because you want to. You want to believe that there must be a rational, decent reason for my actions. You'll believe me because you _need_ to.'

His calm, cool words delivered unequivocally and with absolute confidence that he controlled her will more completely than she did ripped through her mind and stole her breath. After all the things he had said to her she still found herself appalled by how cold he could be.

'You really are heartless.'

Balthier smiled, ice and velvet. 'No darling,' he answered and his hands continued to massage her hips, fingertips flickering over the small of her back, the dip of her spine. 'I have a heart, in both an anatomical and romantic sense, and it is yours if you wish it, but that does not make it a good one.'

He closed his eyes and sighed in relaxed fashion. The movement of his rip cage expanding and retracting was felt keenly through Penelo's own body as she perched atop him.

'Of course you know that and if you were to be honest with yourself, you would realise that you do not much care; you've always known that I am a scoundrel.'

'That is not true.' Penelo gasped outraged and astounded that he would have the audacity to question her mortality at a time like this (although he was right in that she had always known him to be a scoundrel). Balthier laughed again, a rich sly chuckle that wrapped around Penelo's soul like a fur lined noose.

'Are you angry with me Penelo?' he purred his eyes dancing almost fiendishly. 'I have never attempted to hide my nature from you and have often endeavoured to protect you from it.'

He pointed out reasonably hands gliding down her thighs from her hips. She felt the pressure of his palms smoothing over the rough fabric of her skirts right through the marrow of her bones. When he stroked his hands back up she felt the crackle of friction as the scratchy underskirts bunched; her nerves tingled with the desire to feel his palms against her skin.

'I told you to leave me and you did not, I told you not to trust me, you went ahead and did so anyway. I told you I had no interest in your love and now I find myself swamped by it. I wonder why you persist in following me if my methods are so abhorrent, hmm?'

Penelo felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. She could not answer that question and she could not explain why, even when she was awash in a deluge of evidence against him, she still could not imagine leaving him.

'Why do you let me?'

The question was a weak deflection but it struck home all the same; Balthier's hands stilled in the folds of her skirt.

'Touché,' was all he would say in response, though he looked less satisfied with himself.

'Are you planning on stealing the Bervenia magicite?' Penelo demanded. It was the only thing she could think of, the only reason, if not sabotage, that Balthier would be headed for the mine. Theft would be a threat to 'mine security', after all.

Balthier sighed and attempted to heft her off him and rise to his feet without answering. Penelo, with no intention of letting her wily quarry go, cast an Immobilising spell so fast it trilled off her tongue like the buzz of passing insects pollinating the wild flowers and thistles in the field.

The tension left Balthier's body as his limbs were numbed by her magick, leaving him defenceless. He could still talk and blink but he could not escape her.

'Hmm, feisty today aren't we?'

Balthier mocked her and Penelo almost wished she could immobilise that silver tongue of his. It occurred to her that she could just cast Silence, but then, if she did that, she would not get any answers from him at all.

'Tell me what you're planning or I'll Blind you, Silence you, Sap you and leave you here to rot.'

Penelo stated and, to demonstrate that she was serious, she murmured the first refrain of another Thundara spell. Balthier's eyes widened but it was not fear that quirked his lips at the corners. Instead, paradoxically, he laughed.

'_Very_ feisty,' he chuckled, 'you should lose your temper more often, sweetheart, you are quite lovely when annoyed.'

Penelo very nearly finished the incantation to give him a shock that would fry his sly tongue inside that smirking mouth, but sense and decency stopped her.

'Tell me.' She repeated, frustrated and angry.

The scent of some astringent foreign herb rising up like a miasma from the crushed grass underneath them, the warmth of Balthier's body tingling the flesh of her inner thighs and his eyes, filled with secrets and dark promise, glittering as he regarded her through heavy-lids combined to tip this fraught moment onto the knife edge of lust and menace.

'I just did.' He told her and Penelo blinked.

'Just did what?'

He rolled his eyes although he still looked amused rather than worried; he seemed to have enjoyed her threat rather than to be chastened by it, 'Pay attention, my dear. I said that I have answered your question already.'

'No you haven't.'

Balthier sighed, 'Dear heart let's not descend into infant squabbling, hmm? I have given you ample answer to your question; you will just have to work it out for yourself and to your own satisfaction.'

He looked at her oddly seriously for just a moment, 'I cannot be your future, Penelo, only you can be that and I have paid too high a price to be what I am today to change now.'

'Why the bomb? What do you need a fake bomb?'

She demanded, ignoring Balthier's ambiguous statement. It was her view that he could do whatever he wanted to, and had proved that numerous times; that he would not change meant that he was not prepared to change. He would not change for her.

Then again, did she want him to change?

'Generally speaking,' Balthier drawled, 'one usually requires explosive devices for their explosive potential – a fake explosive is far safer than a real one when it is only the potential that is required.'

'Huh?' Penelo floundered against that inexplicable statement. Why plant a bomb that you knew wouldn't go off? Why pretend to want to blow something up if you didn't want to blow something up?

He gave her a look, 'Eloquent, sweetheart. If you are not careful I'll think myself conversing with Vaan. Now can you remove the immobilisation now? This little tête-à-tête would be more enjoyable for us both if I could move.'

Penelo cupped her hands and lightening flashed between her fingers, 'If you're not careful I'll do just that so that you can _feel_ it when I loose thundaga through your thick skull.' She snapped.

Again the threat would have worked better if the target of the threat had looked as though he was taking her remotely seriously.

'Now tell me why you were planning on blowing up - or not blowing up - the mine; are you trying to steal the magicite?' She held her cupped hands over his chest, the thundaga spell caught between the cage of her fingers like a trapped bird.

* * *

_We are all prisoners of our own passions; happiness is the vice that makes our enslavement._

Balthier watched her with heavy-lidded eyes, 'Clever girl,' he murmured appreciatively, 'the magicite is an attractive commodity and will get me out of a spot of bother with my fellow sky pirates.'

He flicked his gaze to the spot where he had discarded the false explosive as he could not so much as turn his head to point to it, 'Check the back of that device; you'll see a seal on it.'

'What?' Penelo asked him suspiciously.

'The box, dearest, look at the seal.'

Penelo hesitated and then, as Balthier couldn't move anyway, she clambered off him to fetch the box. She turned it over and looked at the back, squinting to make out the seal of House Margrace engraved on the back.

'You…..' She trailed off, unable to find words and his smile broadened.

She scrambled back over to Balthier. She straddled him again because she did not trust him even while immobilised and this way she would know immediately if he was trying anything underhanded (that was absolutely the only reason – there was no amorous connotations whatsoever).

'Hmm, yes, do you begin to see now?' Balthier asked, giving her an amused look, whether over her reaction or the fact that she was on top of him again Penelo did not want to speculate.

'But House Margrace isn't trying to blow up the mine – they want the mine to give to Ashe to make her marry Al-Cid.'

Balthier watched her with dancing eyes, 'What House Margrace wants and what everyone will suspect them of doing when the duds are discovered are two entirely different things.'

'What is that supposed to mean; why won't you just tell me?'

Penelo glared at him and stabbed her fingers down onto his chest, the faint tendrils of thundaga still clinging to her fingertips found a grounding in his rib cage. Balthier winced as he felt the shock through the fading grip of the immobilisation spell. He arched his eyebrows as movement came back to him slowly.

'Temper, temper, my bird, I never realised your proclivities verged towards sadism.'

Penelo actually growled as she re-cast the immobilisation spell just as Balthier was beginning to regain control of his arms and legs; she had no intention of letting him wriggle away from her physically as he was verbally.

He frowned at her as if she was nothing more than a rowdy child but, with little other respite and perhaps finally grasping the vulnerability of his situation, he answered her – after a fashion.

'Think now, sweetheart, who stands to gain the most from House Margrace's disgrace, hmm?' Balthier asked lightly in a voice as dry as dust.

Penelo frowned. Who did stand to gain the most from framing Al-Cid and his family? At first she thought of Arnault Vivaldino, but his fight was with the Avenlieu family not the Margraces'. Balthier didn't really need to disgrace anyone to steal the magicite - he would just take it. So who stood to gain…..?

The gusts battering the tall grass and sending the clouds flying across the pure blue sky sent a shiver down her spine as she finally worked it out.

'Ashe.' She breathed, 'but why…..' why would she go to such lengths to avoid a marriage? If she didn't want to marry Al-Cid why didn't she just say so?

Balthier smiled faintly, hard and ironic, 'Why don't you tell me, sweetheart? We both know what my word is worth, after all.'

Penelo stared into his calm dark eyes and it seemed to her that she saw every facet of his character in one slow blink.

She saw him cold and aloof, secretive and devious and revelling in his illicit knowledge at her expense. She saw him dismissive and needlessly cruel and she saw him smiling softly at the tail end of the night, stroking her hair as she fell asleep beside him. She saw him with open expression listening to her questions and answering her, or taking her to the places where she could find her own answers. She saw him with rolled up sleeves before his easel concentrating on a new painting, or directing her to pose for him. She saw him spending his Gil freely on her because she wanted or needed something and laughing as he waved off her gratitude. She saw his hands blurring over a pad of paper as he sketched street scenes or country panorama's while sitting on stone steps or street corners, unself-conscious and relaxed.

She saw him in all his guises, the masks he wore and the truths he hid. She looked into those brown eyes, currently warm and focused on her and staring into his eyes the truth made itself known to her gradually opening up like a thorny flower.

'Because,' she murmured thinking hard, 'because she has to have a reason to refuse Al-Cid and there isn't any evidence to link him or his family with what Duke Avenlieu has done; they'll just deny that they knew anything about it.'

'No doubt Al-Cid is doing so with great sincerity and earnestness even as we lie here; or rather as I lie here immobile and helpless and you poke me with electric shocks,' his lips quirked ironically, 'no matter.'

'Ashe won't even have to marry Al-Cid to get the magicite; now she's met Vivaldino she can just make a deal with him, because she'll rule at the mediation that the mine belongs to him and Rozzaria will have no choice but to give it to him.'

Penelo was stunned and amazed at the depths of duplicity of her own queen, and yet she could also believe that Ashe, convinced that she was morally right so long as Dalmasca benefited from her actions, would do whatever it took to get her own way.

'Hmm, our queen is no fool.' Balthier agreed blandly, almost as if he could hear her thoughts.

'Of course, she will also use her influence to ensure that the rake who plants the false explosives and engineered this little drama for her is never caught or prosecuted for his actions.' He added ironically.

'And Larsa won't prosecute you because he has too much to lose if you reveal his involvement,' Penelo's mind ran ahead of her, almost tripping in her haste, 'So you get away with everything.' she added leadenly.

She looked at him sharply as something else occurred to her, 'And while you're planting false evidence for Ashe you thought you'd steal some of the magicite for your own profit.'

Balthier smiled, the clouds playing tag with the sun cast dancing shadows of grey and burnished gold across his face as he lay motionless underneath her, 'Not a bad summary, my dear, now what say you cast an Esuna so I can get on with said planting of false evidence?'

Penelo looked at the scorch mark over his chest above his heart, she thought about Fran tied to a bed. She thought about her own queen prepared to resort to underhanded means to grant her country (Penelo's country too) economic stability without having to sell herself in the marriage market.

'I'm coming with you,' she told him even as she cast Esuna. 'You need someone to be your conscience; you were obviously born without one.'

Balthier, freed of his previous paralyse surged into action, arms catching her around the waist and twisting so that, faster than Penelo could react (and she had fast reactions) she found herself sinking into the spongy bed of heather and grass stems with Balthier, arms braced on either side of her head, on top of her.

The sunlight slanted and scythed around the tattered white edges of fluffy clouds tossed across the fast moving cerulean sky and the stray rays caught in his short cropped pale brown hair, bringing out the tawny gold highlights and sun bleaching. Shadow and light skidded over the tall grasses that hissed and whistled and rippled like emerald water in the breeze.

All Penelo could see was Balthier poised above her as the vaguely medicinal scent of crushed herbs filled her nostrils and made her head spin; his smile sharp and bright and irrepressibly wicked sparked into life.

'I wouldn't have it any other way, sweetheart.'

Penelo couldn't help but think, as she was crushed even further down into the springy grasses and pungent herbs by Balthier's kiss (which seemed intent on robbing her of her wits – and her breath) that she had once again acted precisely as he had wanted her to all along. The trouble was, with his mouth on hers and his arms locked around her, Penelo wasn't sure she cared.

In acting as his conscience she was very worried she might end up losing hers.


	15. Chapter 15

_Serendipity makes us all beggars._

'I don't even understand why you care if Dalmasca has magicite of its own; why are you so set on helping Ashe?'

Penelo skipped along beside Balthier, who walked fast anyway regardless of his much longer legs.

'Hmm, do you suppose you will stop talking at any point in the near future?'

He asked her dryly still tramping manfully over the tall grasses and craggy underfoot stones and rocks that jutted out of the dark soil. Penelo had clamped her arms around his right upper arm and let him tow her over the worst of the obstacles. She ignored the question, as was her prerogative as a woman.

'I also don't think Ashe should be doing something like this and using the good of the people of Dalmasca as justification for breaking the law,' she thought for a moment, panting slightly as she raced along beside Balthier, 'are queen's subject to ordinary laws?'

Balthier muttered something unfavourable under his breath as Penelo tripped over a rock and would have gone flying face first into the mud had she not been clinging to him like a limpet.

'What?' she asked him sharply once she was fully vertical once more; she had the distinct feeling he had said 'it's just as well you're good in bed' but she wasn't completely sure.

Balthier glanced at her, the slight drooping of his brows suggesting he was annoyed before he turned away as they crested the top of yet another hill. 'I said that we are here.' he answered mendaciously.

The mine looked exactly like a hole in side of the high, balding hill that rose up on the other side of the valley that pooled below the hill they stood atop of. Although she did not know why, Penelo had sort of expected the Bervenia Magicite mine that had caused all this trouble to be more impressive.

'That's it?' she frowned. She had expected members of the Avenlieu militia to be guarding the contested mine maybe with some form of barricade or artillery. Instead the opening to the mine, like a perfect round hole framed by large wood beams, was open to all comers.

'What were you expecting: Nethicite and trapped Wyrms?'

Penelo glanced at Balthier curiously. He had once again undergone a dramatic shift in temperament, from playful and sensuous to sharp and impatient (sometimes Penelo wondered if he ever confused himself – he was so changeable). Still his allusion to that other mine Penelo had once spent extensive time in, the Henne Mine, brought back a suffusion of contrasting emotion.

'Well, as long as there aren't any Flans we should be fine.' she retorted staunchly.

Penelo would remember until the day she died the moment when the horde of gelatinous flans had dripped from the ceiling of the fork in the Henne passageway and attacked their party all those years ago. When Vaan had been all but smothered under the advancing, semi-liquid bulk of the horrible, jiggling things, she had been sure they were all going to die.

'Hmm,' Balthier agreed ironically, 'I was particularly impressed when her highness decided to summon Belias in that enclosed space and nearly incinerated us all alongside those damned blobs of blubber.'

Penelo giggled, 'They exploded all over the place when Belias hit them with those fireballs,' she grinned at the memory, 'if the _debris _hadn't been scolding hot and I hadn't been so scared it would have been funny.'

Balthier gave her a disgusted look, 'It was not funny when I had to pick blubber and grease from my person for hours thereafter.' He told her perniciously and she smiled beatifically back at him.

'Oh, no, that was the funniest part,' she contradicted him serenely. 'you should have seen your face. You glared at Ashe all through that mine. I don't think that huge Wyrm we fought distracted you from complaining about your cuffs for more than an hour even.'

The tiniest hint of a smile played at the edges of his scowl. 'Those were expensive cuffs, you desert urchins simply have no respect for refinement.'

He told her primly but with exaggerated pique that told her clearly that he was deliberately opening himself up to further teasing. Balthier was undoubtedly a proud and vain man, but he had the grace to acknowledge those faults and did not mind laughing at himself if the joke was well done.

'No, we _street urchins_ just have better sense than to fight fiends in our best clothes.'

She jumped at the chance to play with him as she hadn't quite dared to do at the time, though she and Vaan had enjoyed many secret sniggers about Balthier's complaining and choice of attire behind his back.

'Bah,' Balthier scoffed but she could tell that he was smiling behind his eyes.

Without further ado Balthier began to clamber down the steep descent of the hill towards the waiting opening of the mine. Penelo, realising that she was fast running out of opportunity to stop him from framing the Avenlieu family and committing a criminal and morally dubious act, hurried after him.

'Balthier, really, why are you doing this?' she asked him as they reached the bottom of the hill and he began to stride purposefully towards the open face of the mine.

'I have explained all this,' he told her shortly, 'Really sweetheart, you must pay more attention.'

'No,' she persisted, 'you've explained why Ashe wants you to do this, and you've explained that you're going to make a profit out of it,' she added clasping his arm once more and trying to use her weight to slow his progress. 'You haven't explained _why _you agreed to it. I know you, Balthier, Gil alone isn't enough for you.'

Her attempts to act like a hume anchor, digging her heels into the mud and rubble and trying to haul him backwards was meeting with failure; she was barely slowing him down. When he stopped abruptly the sudden shifting of opposing forces of inertia and the surcease of forward momentum almost toppled her onto her backside.

'Stay here.' Balthier told her succinctly. 'This won't take long.'

'I'm not staying here. I told you I'm coming with you.' she told him offended. Balthier closed his eyes and seemed almost to be beseeching patience from a passing deity.

'Penelo, dearest, if you come with me you are then culpable.' He told her with elaborate patience, 'You will be a willing, fully cognizant accomplice to a criminal act. Is that what you want?'

She thought about this and for the first time it occurred to her that whatever Balthier's intentions might have been while playing the strange game of push and pull with her affections, his actions had so far allowed her to remain 'innocent' despite association. She was his captive not his accomplice, he wanted her gone so she couldn't possibly be in on it with him, he lied so that she really didn't know what he intended to do. Was it even remotely possible that part of the reason he did all that was so that no blame could be attached to her?

Balthier had been watching her think and he now nodded, cupping her chin with his hand and brushing his thumb over her cheek, 'All jests aside, darling, this is not something you want to be involved in. At the moment you are free from guilt let's keep it that way, hm?'

Penelo tilted her chin defiantly, 'I'm going with you.'

He sighed growing exasperated, 'Penelo…'

'No,' she spoke over him, 'I want you to stop this; it's wrong and you know it.' She told him, 'but if you won't, if you're determined to do this then you're taking me with you and we'll both have to deal with the consequences if we're caught.'

Balthier frowned, 'Sweetheart,' he began in a voice that was anything but affectionate, 'this is all very romantic but I really think you should think this through. You cannot stop me and I will not take a fall for you. Therefore I am asking you to stay here.'

Penelo took a breath and snapped, 'Don't patronise me!'

'Don't emotionally blackmail me!'

'Then don't break the law!'

'I'm a bloody sky pirate what else am I to do?'

They both stopped abruptly at the same time glaring at each other in mutually uncomprehending annoyance. After a moment Balthier threw up his hands in pique and pivoted on his heel, intent on stalking away towards the cavernous opening of the mine. Penelo, breathless in her anger – and almost giddy over how fast they could go from sharing a joke to snapping at each other -let him go.

* * *

_Tit for tat and push and pull; when one tries to move the mountain one needs a large shovel. _

Penelo, arms wrapped about herself turned her back on Balthier as he strode quickly across the open space towards the mine opening. The wind had picked up again and goose-bumps stroked over her arms and legs. She shivered in her borrowed skirt and blouse.

She was torn between the impulse to go tearing after him and casting immobilise again and again until nightfall or however long it took until Balthier gave up his plan of sabotage and double-dealing and commonsense which told her that Balthier was a grown man who made his own choices, and what's more, he was right and she did not want to make herself as guilty as he was.

Commonsense lost, for a girl who had a lot of commonsense Penelo knew she didn't exactly act on it all that often. Balthier had disappeared from view, perhaps having already entered the mine, as Penelo ran down the hill and across the balding, reddish dust and scraggly grasses of the valley towards the mine.

She really did not understand why there was no one guarding the mine entrance, unless of course the Avenlieu Militia had all been withdrawn because of the mediation?

There was a trail of something liquid and dark winding in broken puddles and splashes from near the entrance to the mine and although Penelo told herself it was likely no more than oil or some such thing, her instincts told her otherwise. There was a dangerously familiar tang of copper in the air and flies had gathered around one of the largest puddles; as far as Penelo knew flies did not like the taste of oil.

The hairs on the nape of her neck standing on end Penelo cast a quick Protect spell over herself and crept cautiously towards the gaping black mouth of the mine. Entering the maw of the mine was like entering another world, suddenly she was plunged into unremitting darkness that went on and on forever as soon as she descended the bottom rung of the metal ladder that led down into the mine pit from the entrance.

As she stood perfectly still, blinking uselessly while her eyes tried to seek out any chink of light she could find to see, Penelo considered how impractical it was that the mine shaft dropped down in a vertical descent with only a ladder to get down or up into the main excavation site. How were the miners supposed to get the Magicite ore out of the pit – carrying it on their backs in tiny bindles?

It was absolutely pitch black and the only sounds was the distant, and seemingly mandatory, sound of water dripping over rock somewhere deep within the darkness. Penelo had only visited two mines in her life, the Lhusu mine (as a victim of kidnapping) and the Henne Mine (as a freedom fighter). It was difficult to say if this mine was better or worse than the others because she could not see a thing anyway.

Although the sensible thing to do, considering she could not see her hand before her face and had no idea of the terrain of the mine, was to climb back up the ladder back out into the opening Penelo did not do this. Instead she took a few faltering steps into the endless blackness.

'Bal….offfmm!'

No more than four steps from ladder Penelo tripped over something lying across the ground and went sprawling forward landing heavily (though the impact was blunted by the Protect spell she had erected around herself) on top of something cold, clammy and oddly stiff. Something wrapped in cloth and slick with a metallic, salty wetness that stuck to the side of her cheek and her hands as she fell across the shape.

The smell of old, cold congealing blood filled her nostrils, coated her senses and sent her rearing up blindly from the invisible corpse she had just tripped over. Penelo fell backwards in her haste to scrabble away from what could only be a body and stumbled over the incantation for a Holy spell that briefly illuminated the small craggy area of the mine she stood in and the body of a man at her feet.

She caught a flash of uniform, a man in an ugly maroon outfit with brass buttons. She saw a young face grown slack and waxy with death and a pool of blood congealed underneath the man's bullet riddled torso; the dead man's eyes, sightless in the dark as they ever would be in the light as well, stared upwards grown filmy with death and the dust of the mine.

The Holy spell winked out and Penelo swallowed hard; in the last flash of illumination she had seen what she thought was another body and another pool of blood a little further into a narrow passageway that led into the interminable blackness.

The dark void closed in around her again but now Penelo was almost supernaturally aware of the corpses she could not see sharing the space with her. The dripping sound of water seeping through rock took on an eerie resonance and Penelo replenished her Protect spell and added a Shell to it. She was just beginning an incantation for a Bubble barrier as well when she caught a tiny sound close to her.

She froze and grew instantly still, the instinctive reaction of a prey animal to the presence of a predator. Holding her breath Penelo thought she could even make out the sound of another's breathing. Straining her senses to the point that she could hear a high singing in her ears Penelo tensed waiting to react to an attack she knew was coming.

* * *

_Heroes and Villains are separated not by creed but circumstance; in but a moment the one can become the other. _

The attack came very quickly when it happened. Penelo heard footsteps sweep up from her left, her attacking having crept along the far wall of the tiny chamber to come around almost behind her in the darkness. Penelo pivoted on her heels to face the direction she thought her attacker was coming from and readied a bolt of Thundaga -the spell having the advantage of being painful and creating illumination.

Her attacker had anticipated her movements however and he moved smoothly with her sliding around her as she tried to face him and slapping a hand over her mouth while the other arm wrapped around her chest pinning her arms down at her sides. In short order Penelo found her back pressed against the torso of a living, breathing man. She recognised the contours of that body and scent of leather and something mouth-watering and exotic even as the hot, purring whisper tickled her ear.

'On second thoughts, sweetheart, you could be right. This might not be the best idea; let's depart, hmm?'

The hand slipped from her mouth and Penelo's breath rushed out of her in a noisy huff of relief. She curled her hands up to grasp his arm in relief as Balthier loosened his hold on her from one of restraint to one of comfort.

She was so relieved and weak from the sudden diminishment of her adrenalin levels that she meekly allowed Balthier to steer her expertly despite the dark towards the ladder. Therefore she was half-way up the ladder, with Balthier's arms reaching up to hold the ladder bars on either side of her waist as he harried her up towards the light, before she stopped to consider.

'Balthier,' she tensed on the step and grew still forcing Balthier to stop a rung below her. 'Balthier what happened down there?'

Balthier released a hand-hold on the ladder so that he could slap her behind lightly. 'Up and be quick about it.'

His tone was not one that brooked any argument and standing on a ladder halfway up a mine shaft was not a good place to hold a conversation so, reluctantly, Penelo began to climb once more.

When they emerged into the painfully bright (in comparison) daylight the wind slapped Penelo around the face and whipped her hair about her in a twisting snarl. She shoved her hair behind her ears as much as she could and turned to face Balthier as he jumped up over the edge of the shaft and to his feet, slipped an arm around her waist and propelled her, face hard, towards the main entrance of the mine.

'Balthier…?'

'Keep moving.'

'But -' she tried to twist about to face the mine once more as Balthier, his arm like granite and his expression as implacable as marble, continued to force her along the path away from the mine at a fast trot.

'They're dead; all dead. Just keep moving.'

Penelo concentrated on walking. She had somewhat expected that the two men she had seen were not the only dead bodies she would find had she been able to venture further into the mine but she still didn't know who 'they' were.

'Who were they?' she asked as the wind buffeted their steps and lashed against her bare shins. 'Those uniforms, were they part of Avenlieu's militia?'

'Yes.' Balthier said shortly. His expression was dangerous; his eyes hard as he drove them forward.

'But who killed them – and why?' Once again, as Balthier began to push her up the hill away from the mine, she tried to crane her neck and look behind her, wondering if they were not being followed; certainly Balthier was tense as a coiled spring.

'It appears dastardly schemes are in short supply these days; the Duke Avenlieu has hit upon the same plan as we have – only with a more lethal edge.' Balthier said with the brittle cheer and empty nonchalance that either meant he was lividly angry or very worried about something or, more likely, both at once.

'What do you mean?' Penelo dug her heels in and refused to move as they crested the top of the hill and began to descend the other side, the mine lost to sight behind the rise of the hill.

Balthier turned to face her, expression abstracted, 'Penelo I need you to run back to the farmhouse to find Fran.'

He reached out and shoved the false bomb device into her hands detaching it first from where he had strung it by a tether to his belts. 'Tell her to destroy this and make sure the rest of the Vivaldino family know that you have been with them the whole time along with Fran.'

Penelo gripped his hand when he tried to pull it away after dropping the bomb into her palms. She refused to let go. 'What's going on? What are you going to do?' she forced him to meet her eyes his gaze distracted and inverted. He wasn't really seeing her at all.

For a moment when he reluctantly paid attention to her she thought he might lie and attempt to divert her. She wasn't stupid, she knew he was planning on going back into the mine as soon as he had sent her away. She just didn't know why.

He sighed, turning his face away briefly into the wind as he absently plucked her hand from his sleeve and turned her palm face up. He stroked a finger over her palm as he spoke.

'The militiamen guarding the mine have all been murdered, shot dead, in the same way as the miners I found further down one of the shafts. I don't think the manner of the death, by gun shot, was an accident; it is no secret that the rifle is my preferred weapon of choice.' Balthier shook his head sharply but she could not read the emotion in his eyes as a cynical smile quirked his lips, 'There was also a rather nasty looking explosive mounted to one of the main support wall of the mine.'

Penelo blinked in confusion, 'How do you know all this; I couldn't see a thing down there.'

Balthier raised his right wrist and pulled down his cuff with his left hand to show her the bracelet he habitually wore on that wrist; for the first time she realised it was a charmed bracelet with a permanent 'Libra' spell set to it. Vaguely it occurred to her that the libra sensing magick would allow Balthier to navigate in the dark – she should have had the foresight to cast libra while she was down in the shaft inside of shivering in the dark like a fool.

Shaking off these inconsequential thoughts Penelo did briefly wonder vaguely what the chances of some else deciding to blow up the mine were but then she shivered, not in the stiff breeze this time, but because a line of heat and pleasure seemed to have been drawn from her palm to her - more intimate parts – which quivered in a silvery rush as Balthier returned to his previous activity of stroking his thumb over her palm.

'Is it a real bomb?' she queried dazedly utterly bemused by this turn of events.

Balthier laughed humourlessly, 'Oh yes; a very nasty piece of work. It will completely collapse the shaft and somehow I rather suspect it will have friends secreted elsewhere throughout the other excavated shafts. The magicite ore seams will be buried under hundreds of tonnes of rock, completely useless to Ashe or anyone else.'

'But who would want to really destroy the mine?'

Balthier dropped her hand, abruptly impatient, 'Avenlieu. He is going to lose it anyway, that and his position. Now run along to Fran she needs to be warned of this change in events.'

Penelo stared at him, trying to process and understand what he had told her and what he was not telling her, 'What about you; why don't you come with me?'

He gave her a droll look, as if she should know the answer and he did not appreciate her deliberate time wasting tactic of asking foolish questions; so eloquent was the look that she could almost hear him say it.

'I know a thing or two about explosives,' was all he actually said in a distracted and breezy tone, the same sort of casual and mild tone of voice that Penelo might use to say 'yes I know something about dancing.'

A jolt of fear coursed through her body from her head to her toes as at that moment a huge gust of wind slammed into her back, swirled around the falling hem of her borrowed skirt and caused her to stumble forward a step into Balthier. He steadied her and she wrapped her hands as tightly as she could around his wrists.

'You are going to try and disarm those bombs.' She accused him and to her consternation Balthier actually smirked.

'I know,' he sighed sounding almost amused, 'my life is full of these sorts of contradictions. I set out to plant false explosives and end up diffusing the real thing. Ah, well, it keeps things interesting I suppose.'

'You'll be killed!'

'I very much hope I won't be. Being blown to smithereens is hardly a fitting death for the leading man.'

'Don't joke; we have to warn Ashe and Vaan and the others!'

'Certainly that is what you should do – however as those bombs could go off at any moment I rather think my time would be better spent trying to prevent the destruction of the mine – all irony aside.'

'Balthier!' she snapped at him in exasperation. Shaking her head as tendrils of her hair whipped about her head and lashed across her eyes. The harsh wind rattling and wailing over the hill stung her eyes making them wet and blurring his face before her. 'You can't go back in there.'

Balthier looked at her with something almost akin to sympathy, 'Penelo I really think I must; if I let the mine be destroyed I will be standing by idly while Avenlieu frames _me_ for murder and the destruction of the mine.'

'Frames you?' realisation dawned, 'You said the men were shot to death……but that doesn't mean…surely no one will think….' Balthier's sardonic expression stopped her short – after all if he was prepared to _pretend_ to blow up a mine why wouldn't he _actually_ blow up a mine?

'Avenlieu will know Vaan is here and by extension that I am. He is not a stupid man, even if he doesn't suspect Ashe's involvement it will be an embarrassment to Ashe, and therefore Vivaldino's case, if her favourite sky pirates are implicated in a crime of this magnitude.'

Penelo could not speak for shock, 'But…'

'Penelo - _GO.' _Balthier actually shoved her away from him and she stumbled and almost fell backwards. She stared at him in shock but he was not looking at her, instead he was already cresting the hill and disappearing over the other side headed, at speed, back to the mine.

'Balthier!'

She scrambled after him and Balthier glanced over his shoulder to shout back at her, 'Penelo – please -go to Fran.'

Before she could react began to run down the hill, half slipping in his haste, and dashing across the baldy ground before the entrance of the mine and its pure black gaping mouth.

Had he not said 'please' with such unvarnished sincerity she would have immediately followed him into the mine and hang the consequences – but his urgency and a resurgence of her own commonsense stilled the impulse to follow him wherever he led that usually impelled her actions.

Penelo turned on her heel and ran as fast as she could over the springy heather and sharp edged long grasses back towards the farmhouse; praying all the way that she would find Fran, or Vaan – or someone – along the way so that she could hasten back to Balthier.

With every pounding running footstep she kept expecting to hear, over the thunder of her own heart beat, a deep and terrible roar as the first of the bombs in the mine detonated.


	16. Chapter 16

_I feed my own soul and fill my own goals; there are angels looking over my shoulder._

Penelo had a stitch up her side from running at full tilt to keep up with Fran running at full tilt over the undulating ground of the hills and heather filled landscape that lead towards the magicite mine. Vaan, Basch and representatives of Dalmasca, Rozzaria and the Bervenia freedom movement were all galloping along behind and Penelo felt a little like a foot soldier charging into battle.

It had taken Penelo no time at all, running like the wind, to reach the Vivaldino farmhouse after separating from Balthier. Fran had already untied herself and was just beginning the trek towards the mine when Penelo all but ran into her. Fran, upon re-acquaintance, took Penelo's earlier attack with good grace and did not say one word against her for afflicting her with magickal sleep and tying her to a bed, for which Penelo was grateful.

After that, with Fran alongside, it had been relatively easy to barge through the various Rozzarian and Dalmascan guards and interrupt proceedings amidst the mediation to inform all gathered that there had been a massacre in the mine and someone was (really) trying to blow it up.

Still as she struggled gainfully onwards, lungs burning and dry heaving from exertion and lack of oxygen, Penelo could not outrun the terror inside her that she and Fran and the others would be too late to stop something awful happening.

Strangely and almost akin to a premonition Penelo was not sure that an explosion (the most obvious disastrous outcome that could come of all this) was the awfulness which she was most afraid of. No, instead Penelo's real fear was in leaving Balthier alone in the mine that meant so much to so many people. She knew that there was something very dark and very twisted inside his head and she was afraid of his true intentions; Penelo was well that just because Balthier started off with good in mind didn't mean he'd end up doing good.

In truth she was afraid of what he might do, and had in fact, been afraid of his true motivations since the moment she had arrived in Balfonheim to confront him. Balthier was up to something and everything he had done, and every action taken, up until now were merely steps in his own strange and devious dance. Whatever he truly wanted was still a mystery but Penelo had a feeling she wouldn't like it when she found out.

Therefore, as she ran as fast as her much shorter legs could take her to keep up with the fleet footed Fran, Penelo suspected that the same fears lurked in the Viera also, propelling her onwards.

One way or another Penelo could not see a happy ending this time; she did not think Balthier would allow there to be one.

* * *

_I say my own name and I weigh my own shame. I swim through your shoal and away from your tide. I do not need you smiling by my side*_

It was official, a proclamation to the affect should go out post haste, it should be known far and wide that Balthier sky pirate did not like bombs.

Well, perhaps that assertion should be qualified to a degree Balthier considered, as he tinkered with the third rather nasty explosive device he had found on yet another support pillar of the particular dark, musty mine shaft he was in. It was not that he did not like bombs, these particularly models were rather impressive filled with all manner of interesting mechanisms, and Balthier did so love mechanisms. It was just that he did not like finding himself in the position of disarming said devices.

All in all Balthier was once more forced to consider the vagaries and peculiarities of his existence and come to the conclusion, unwelcome though it be, that he really had no one to blame but himself for the mess he now found himself in.

Having carefully and delicately extracted the innards of yet another device Balthier would always be thankful for that little quirk of serendipity that had meant that a slight twinge in his right knee had made him a little slow in rising to his feet as it was that fraction of a second delay that made the difference of life or death.

The bullet meant for the back of his cranium instead merely parted his hair as it bit into the support post in a shower of wood splinters. Balthier was in movement rolling backwards head over heels across the uneven mineshaft floor by the time the second shot was fired.

Balthier knew guns; he knew that his best chance of evading instant death or painful perforation was to roll toward his attacker as he was certain that his would-be assassin was using a long range rifle and not a handgun and would therefore be less effective at close quarters.

Although he undoubtedly had tears in his borrowed shirt and scuffs in his borrowed trousers from his tumble over the mineshaft floor Balthier had enough practice in falling over (being tackled, being thrown into walls – and otherwise being on the receiving end of a sound beating) that his brain did not rattle around in his head too much as he uncoiled from his roll and lunged for his attackers feet.

The dim illumination of the gas lamp Balthier had found and lit, and then left about ten feet further down the passage, did not offer much in the way of aid. However Balthier did not need to see his attacker to smash his elbow into the man's nose while pinning him to the ground with his knees on the man's chest and using his other arm to smack the rifle away. Identification could come later; a corpse was as recognisable as a living body if one was careful in the making of said corpse.

The flurry of curses in high-brow Rozzarian accented by more provincial tones gave away the man's identity however and Balthier reached down to yank the kerchief away from the man's mouth as blood bubbled up from his broken nose.

'Hmm, too young to be the Duke Avenlieu himself,' Balthier murmured as a pair of pain bright but furious dark eyes glowered up at him from under perfectly clipped thick dark brows, 'Too well dressed and far too ineffectual a marksman to be a mercenary; you must be one of Avenlieu's sons, correct?'

The man spat bloody phlegm at him but lacked the force necessary to do anything but spit on himself in unbecoming fashion. Balthier resisted rolling his eyes as he considered what he could use to restrain the man.

'You never be able to disarm all de bombs, Archadian pirate scum.'

Balthier had been considering knocking the man unconscious and maybe trying out an immobilisation spell on the man. He now looked down on him and arched one brow incuriously.

'Archadian scum?' he smirked dryly, 'typical Rozzarian, still using that old chest nut of an insult and still falling so very far from the mark.'

Despite his words Balthier was far from disinterested. The man, while managing to beautifully incriminate himself as the planter of the various incendiaries Balthier had yet to find within the twisted passages of the mine, had also raised a very pertinent point. If there were more bombs to find Balthier needed to know where they were and quickly…….or he needed to get out of here sharpish.

He sighed, 'How long do we have until detonation?'

The man, who Balthier was certain was one of Avenlieu's three sons but did not care enough to inquire after his name (not that the man would tell him), sneered at him full of false bravado and pure, unadulterated stupidity in the face of almost certain death.

'I die before I tell you anyt'ing, filthy pirate pig-dog.'

_Pig-dog? _Balthier arched both brows and let his weight settle a little more firmly on top of the man, knees pressing into the man's ribs until he winced and struggled to inflate his lungs.

'Yes, let us consider that statement, shall we?' He demurred dryly, 'You _will_ die if you won't tell me how to disarm those bombs because I will either kill you myself or knock you out and let you be crushed under the rock fall when the bombs go off.'

'You no kill me, you precious queen not like that.' The man looked uncertain but he valiantly (and moronically) maintained his bluster and bravado.

Balthier felt something almost approaching pity for the man: idiocy should always be pitied. He shook his head slowly, 'You are mistaken. I hold no allegiance to any queen. I look only to my own interests.'

'Liar.' The man snarled.

'Yes,' He agreed mildly, mind elsewhere, 'but not about this matter.'

The mine, to Balthier, was simply a means to an end and that end had nothing whatsoever to do with magicite ore. The mine had become the focal point of various agendas.

Ashe wanted to use it for her kingdom's economic ends and to avoid a marriage of convenience that she found somewhat inconvenient. Rozzaria wanted the revenue of the magicite as a means of forcing a marriage on the Dynast Queen. Vivaldino wanted the mine to gain Bervenia's independence from Rozzaria and Balthier……well the mine's value to Balthier was even more_ theoretical_ than it was to some of those other competing ambitions.

Blow up the mine, don't blow up the mine……it was all much of a muchness to him. He didn't really care one way or the other and had no emotional investment in the welfare of Vivaldino and the people of Bervenia.

Perhaps there was something in his tone of voice that tipped off the other man to his sincerity – and to the fact that Balthier would have no compunction about leaving him to die in a cave-in – whatever the case may be the man squirmed (or tried to) underneath Balthier.

'…..we…we make a deal, yes? You sky pirates, you all want de gil an' not'ing else, dat so, eh?'

'Gil only goes so far,' He murmured mind running ahead as he considered his own agenda against those of the people who were nominally his allies – even those who might be his friends, 'still I'm listening.'

The man being slowly asphyxiated under the weight of Balthier's body managed a rasping grin, equal parts greedy hope and desperation.

'Den we make deal, eh, one dat better for you den what de queen be offering.'

Balthier regarded this man, obviously an adherent of Avenlieu even if he wasn't in fact his son, who was his prisoner and essentially helpless. The proper, honourable thing to do would be to drag this man out of the mine by the scruff of his neck and present him to Ashe for due punishment. Vivaldino would get his mine, Bervenia would be free and the Avenlieu family would get their just desserts; alls well that ends well.

A flash of Penelo's face at her most earnest and sincere danced before his eyes. He knew what she would expect of him. He knew what he had tacitly allowed her to believe of him. The weight of her expectations bore down on him even without her being here beside him; he was still not sure it was a burden he wished to carry.

However there was no denying this was the perfect opportunity for a picture perfect happy ending. A pity then he had never favoured such things.

'What manner of deal are you suggesting?'

If one looked at the situation rationally, without being swayed by emotion and sentiment and abstract notions such as honour, decency and loyalty it did Balthier no harm at all to hear the other man out, did it now?

He withdrew from the man, who was going purple in the face, and swooped down easily to retrieve the man's rifle and point firmly at him as he rose to his feet. The man spent a moment brushing his tail coat off and Balthier was able to get a better look at him as he rose into the light of the distant lamp.

His clothing was elaborate and not the sort of attire one should wear when attempting covert acts of espionage (even Balthier modified his wardrobe when he wanted to go about incognito). The man, who was about Balthier's own height, wore a sky blue tail coat with silver thread toiling and leather trousers dyed a deep blue with long supple leather knee high boots with flaps and extraneous buckles that glowed brassily in the dim light. He had the look of a dandy fop about him and while Al-Cid Margrace used that very same look to hide a surprisingly nimble mind this man, Blathier suspected, was exactly what he seemed; the pampered idiot child of a very powerful man.

Stupid scions of power were useful however so, while he did not remove the rifle from pointing directly at the man's head, he did decide to initiate the usual pleasantries adding a little civility to the proceedings.

'I assume you know this already, but I am Balthier, if we are to barter I would like to know your name as well.'

'I am Herakles Arturo Avenlieu the third; I am the Duke of Avenlieu's first born son and heir.'

The man preened, actually preened, as if his name and supposed status alone would protect him from a bullet to the head that would send small particles of his grey matter to spatter the walls of the shaft in a wide radius.

'Hmm,' He murmured refraining from comment, for which Herakles should count himself very fortunate indeed, 'What do you offer me, Herakles?'

Still preening Herakles smiled, 'My father can make you very rich.'

Balthier was once again struck by ironic pity this time for the Duke Avenlieu himself. If this was the best Avenlieu could do in a first born and heir he was almost afraid to see just what cretins his other two sons must be. Balthier smiled thinly.

'I am already quite exceedingly wealthy; gil only goes so far and does not in itself protect one from a bullet or a knife to the back. If that is the best you can offer I'm afraid you will soon find out just how useless wealth is against a bullet to the head.'

He cocked the rifle for added emphasise suspecting that Herakles would need the visual aid to help him assimilate Balthier's meaning. The other man's eyes widened.

'Y – you can not kill me.'

Balthier tilted his head to the side wondering how long it would be before the cavalry would arrive – surely Penelo had made it back to Fran by now? 'You have said this already, but I assure you I can.'

'But I am Herakles Avenlieu, son of….'

'Yes, quite,' there was only so much idiocy he could stomach before it lost its amusement value, 'and you will still be Herakles Avenlieu after I shoot you; you will just be dead Herakles.'

'B-but you…you are Balthier….you are de man dat 'elp save Dalmasca, an' fought de Empire. You a 'ero!'

'Flagrant false advertising,' Balthier dismissed the appeal to his supposed better nature easily enough, 'Now Herakles either you have a proposition for me that will make killing you redundant or you don't, which is it, hmm?'

Herakles spent a few seconds impersonating a landed fish, mouth opening and closing soundlessly and Balthier, still wondering where Fran or Penelo or even Vaan and Basch were and what was taking them so long, gave the man a patient look.

'Would you like five minutes to think about it?'

* * *

_You are your own worst nightmare but I was the one always caught dreaming. _

The explosion when it came actually didn't register with Penelo as she clambered up the hill that stood between her and the mountain entrance of the mine. It was Fran who recognised what the slight tremor underfoot meant and reached out to snag Penelo's arm and pull her back as they crested the hill.

'Fran we have to keep going Balthier is in there alone and…'

'Wait; you feel it do you not?'

The others had also come to a stop and it seemed to Penelo as she looked about her into Vaan's face and Basch's that she was the only one who had been too busy trying to race to the rescue to notice the moment the ground moved underfoot.

'Feel what?' she asked though she was afraid she knew.

'Lets go see,' Vaan said moving past she and Fran to crest the rise of the hill, 'we might be able to see something from…..oh no.'

Vaan's soft exclamation was enough for Penelo who wrenched free of Fran's hold and ran up the hill to stand beside Vaan.

Expecting to see the mountain shaken down to nothing more than rubble and dust, or flames fountaining up into the sky from the mine entrance, she was at first perplexed when she could not see anything in particular out of the ordinary about the bald, rocky entrance of the mine. She could even see that the bloodstains were still visible on the ground right outside the entrance.

'What…?' she turned to Vaan in confusion as the others joined them on the crest of the hill. Now that she wasn't seeing flames and smoke and all the other things she associated with explosions Penelo was free to feel only her own physical exhaustion. Her legs felt wobbly and her lungs ached and she was cold in the high wind as it chilled the sweat coating her skin. Adrenalin and worry twisted her stomach in knots.

'Look.'

Vaan pointed towards the entrance to the mine and this time as Penelo followed his finger she finally saw what the others had seen long before. The entrance to the mine was no longer a neat square cut into the rock of the mountain. Now it was smaller, an irregular indentation in the rock face that was filled in with lots of smaller rocks and boulders.

There had been a cave-in and the entrance to the mine was blocked.

'Underground, an explosion; perhaps but one in many small collapses,' Fran said quietly on Penelo's right, 'the mine is buried; a most professional job.'

Penelo felt her eyes sting, salty sweat searing tear ducts as she blinked her wet eyes. She sucked in a sharp breath. She had witnessed Balthier fake his own death only days before; she did not know what to think even as fear clawed at her throat.

'What about Balthier?' she asked in tremulous voice because it was the only question to ask.

Fran's gaze, alien in its quiet stillness, its ageless knowledge and the weight of the burden of all those years, fixed on Penelo. She lifted one elegant shoulder in a shrug that spoke volumes even as it said nothing at all. When she finally spoke her words were accented not just with the exotic lilt of her never spoken mother tongue but also with some manner of formless regret.

'Either victim or perpetrator; if he is not here to find he will not be found.'

* * *

* - _the first and second section headings (italics) are both rough plagiarisms respectfully stolen from the lyrics of a song by Eliza Carthy 'Row of Angels' from her 'Dreams of Breathing Underwater' album. _


	17. Chapter 17

_Penance is merely the coward's way to survive himself, when all is said and done the glass darkly is cracked and no one is watching anyway._

Being crushed hurts. Suffocation hurts. The taste of dust filling his lungs and coating his throat created a less than savoury accent to the thick patina of his own blood slicking his tongue, which incidentally, hurt as well. Balthier had not known it was physically possible to hurt quite literally from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes but, apparently, it was. His eyes screamed tears and were blinded by the dust he could not see as no light penetrated the deep, rubble filled pit he had fallen into.

Balthier really was in quite considerable pain. It was the sort of debilitating pain that made him, despite the immediate peril of his situation, want to curl up and sleep the rest of his life away. He could feel the numerous oozing lacerations punctuating his body. It felt as if he had been flayed alive in a storm of grit and dust (not that he had any actual experience of such but he doubted such a fate could hurt more than this).

The tenacity of spirit, that pure selfish desire to live that had always burned bright within him, screamed distantly in his head trying to command nerve endings and limbs and such like to move. He knew if he stood any chance of surviving he had to keep moving – or at least ascertain if he _could_ still move.

He was lying on his back somewhere deep underground, having bounced and rolled and fallen down a mine pit or rift in the tunnel as the mine shaft ceiling had collapsed. Although the fall had hurt considerably (Gods had it hurt) that very fall had also spared his life. Rocks the size of boulders had fallen into the hole with him but miraculous missed squashing him. However his luck was as jaded as ever; he had avoided a quick immediate death under a thousand tonnes of rock only to face the infinitely more drawn out and protracted fate of death by suffocation. The pile of boulders and rubble had sealed off the remains of the shaft above him and cut off most of the air supply from the entrance.

He had been in worse situations than this Bahamut sprang to mind, but not by much.

Realising that he really had to do something other than lie here in the dark and bleed Balthier decided to oblige his frustrated survival instinct and attempted a cautious exploration of his body.

Hmm, arms yes, he could move both his arms without too much pain. He appeared to be lying on his back and could feel pointed shards of some manner of rock sticking into him in awkward places that suggested, at least, that he had not broken his spine and suffered paralysis. Legs? Hmm, pain in the left leg, sharp and immediate around his ankle, a possible break, yet if that was the only broken bone he had he was pushing the boundaries of credulity.

It was when he tried to sit up that a blinding, tearing, white-hot ricochet of agony seared through his entire torso. Heat radiated from a spot just below his ribs on his right side in that soft area of his torso between the bony cage of his ribs and the compact square of his hips; the place in the body where all the soft tissue and vital organs resided in one hot stew of potentially fatal vulnerability.

Balthier had often been accused of being ridiculously gung-ho and cavalier about his bodily safety, risking his life and limb as if he actually believed that the leading man never dies. The truth was a little more complicated; a mix of youthful recklessness (he was only twenty-six years old – of course he was bloody immortal) and a certain philosophical nihilism. He had no family, no dependents, and no real purpose or reason for his continued existence except his own gratification therefore should he die he would be the only one to care, and being dead he was saved from the bother.

Still it was with definite reluctance and trepidation that he tentatively reached down with his hands to feel for the injury that had caused him such pain when he tried to move. The first thing he became aware of was the sticky, heavy wetness of his own blood covering his shirt, not a large spill but enough to make him wonder whether something unpleasantly sharp had penetrated those aforementioned soft tissues in some manner during his fall.

When his right hand touched something hard and slick that appeared to have sprouted from the very centre of the burning ache in his stomach Balthier was initially confused. When he instinctively tried to pull the unwelcome foreign body from his flesh (a foolish thing to do and an almost certain way of ensuring he bled out at double quick speed) that confusion graduated to bright and brittle panic when he found he could not pull the spike of sharp, flinty magicite ore from his body – because the stalagmite of precious ore was not piercing _into_ his flesh but _through_ it.

He had been impaled. Now that his mind had made sense of the perplexing multitude of pain signals his body had been trying to communicate all this while it became a simple matter to feel both the entry and exit points of the spike. He fancied he could almost feel the hard, jagged edged knife of rock inside him to, jarring against his innards, tearing his essential organs and sending splinters of magicite into his blood stream.

'Enough man,' his own words, voice mangled by his own blood on his lips and choked by the rock dust came as a surprise in the unsteady, precarious silence of the caved in hole that was most likely going to be his final resting place. 'The situation is bad enough without indulging in foolish flights of fancy.' he chastised himself out loud hoping to drown out the panic gnawing at the edges of his mind.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember everything he had ever known about such injuries as this. That knowledge, hardly extensive, boiled down to the basic tenant of 'try to avoid ending up skewered on pointy bits of rock' but the caveat knowledge his memory provided was that on finding oneself impaled not moving was a good way of ensuring he did not do even more damage to himself.

Of course he might be dying even as he lay here in the dark; his kidney could be ruptured, his stomach perforated his…….well anatomy had never been his strong suit but he did not doubt that any number of organs imperative to life were imperilled by having a foot long spear of rock sticking out of him!

'I suppose you think this is funny,' Balthier could not see the 'roof' of the hole he was at the bottom of, but he addressed himself to the sundry deities and sprites of fate that seemed to so enjoy punishing him for simply daring to draw breath (or so it seemed). 'It is not enough that I am to die a horrible death but instead you must ensure that that death is as ironic as possible, hmm?'

Usually Balthier pretended he did not believe in anything except the lies that habitually rolled from his tongue, but it was not strictly true. He believed that one day he would see his father again. He did not really know where or how or in what capacity but Balthier did not believe that his business with his father was resolved therefore, somehow, they must meet again.

'I suppose you could not engineer a spear of genuine deifected nethicite or suchlike to make the experience of my death even more excruciatingly ironic, hmm, no doubt even capricious deities have their limits, isn't that right?'

One of the greatest secrets Balthier held to his heart was the one that flew in the face of his oft out-spoken atheism, he believed in the gods – or at least in some guiding principle or force beyond the conceits of man – he believed in them because there had to be someone, or something, to blame for the various disasters he found himself suffering. Blaming himself was not an option, not only because there was always someone else to blame if he looked hard enough, but also because he had to live with himself and so could not really go about despising his own self all the live long day, could he now?

'I cannot help but wonder, as I lie here waiting for my ruptured innards to poison me with various leaking toxic substances and thus drown me, quite literally, in my own vitriol why it is that you are always so blasted swift to punish me for my failings but not anyone else.'

The darkness, hot and cramped and filled with the musty dryness of rock and subterranean stillness, did not answer him. Balthier closed his eyes, a different darkness, sucking at the roots of his being behind his closed lids, threatened to draw him down into depths he would not surface from. He could feel death's undertow nipping at his heels.

The truly aggravating point of all this, beyond any general grievance around dying such an ignoble death at such a young age in the first place, was the fact that he had been trying to do the right bloody thing. He had been trying to act in a way that went against his better judgement (take the Gil and run) but which he knew a certain flaxen haired dancer would appreciate.

'No doubt when she finds my bloodless corpse she will believe I blew myself up attempting some manner of double-cross; serves me right for entangling myself with a naïve idealist. This is what one gets when trying to do the right thing.'

Balthier coughed miserably which led to his muscles seizing with rapturous agony as the slight movement caused by his cough made him doubly aware of the spike sticking through him. It suddenly occurred to him that he was sweating profusely in the clammy darkness and that the sweat clung to his skin like ice water. He had to clench his teeth to stop shivering and causing himself even more pain.

With nothing else to do as he lounged about waiting for death he let his mind tick over the events that had led to this sorry state of affairs and tried to work out if he could have done anything differently.

The answer of course was yes, he could have bloody well done things differently. He should have shot that Rozzarian idiot and left the mine post haste, clearing out without trace before either the mine ignited or Avenlieu's body was found. That was his initial plan and the one and only thing that had stopped him had been imagining Penelo's reaction when she inevitably found out what he had done.

It was a sorry state of affairs indeed when a sky pirate of his standing could be laid low by a pig-tailed blonde with delusions of his decency.

Still for all that, he had tried to take the moral high road when faced with Herakles Avenlieu. He had strung the foppish young twit along for as long as he could, having arrogantly (and yes he could admit to being arrogant in the privacy of his own death throes) decided that the Rozzarian moron's lack of haste meant that there was no more explosive devices yet to be de-armed. It had not occurred to him that Herakles might be stringing him along at the same time. Or, considering how things had panned out, it was possible Herakles was just so stupid he had forgotten that a bomb still remained, timer ticking down, even as they went through the façade of negotiation.

Balthier had just begun to manoeuvre the negotiations (which boiled down to something along the lines of 'I won't tell my friends that you were trying to blow up the mine if you don't tell your father I was trying to frame him for sabotage') towards there close and suggested they seal the deal in a different location, namely one outside of the mine, where he hoped to emerge with a gun pointed at the back of the real saboteur just as Ashe, Penelo, and the rest of the mediation party arrived with perfect dramatic timing, when everything went terribly wrong.

Alas as with so many of his finer plans, this one did not fall out quite as he had envisioned.

Instead of emerging into the sunlight with the villainous Avenlieu under gun point to much applause, somewhere between verbally and mentally over-powering Herakles and herding him towards the mine entrance the bomb, the one Herakles had failed to mention and Balthier had not even considered the existence of, went off in the heart of the warren of cavern shafts. The rest did not need remembering and consisted mostly of pain, loud noises, darkness, blood, and resulted in the situation as it currently stood.

Balthier slid one hand up to curl his fingers around the point where the stalagmite of magicite ore had stabbed through him. The rock was splintered and edged with jagged serrations like a splintered piece of wood and slick with his own blood and viscera. It was hot down here; a horrible clinging sweat slicked heat that made him shiver and tasted of burning copper and scarlet blood.

He closed his eyes; he was so very tired all of a sudden.

* * *

_We do not love those we love for their benefit; we do it for our own. More often then not we love despite the nature of our love and in spite of all the world._

Penelo was almost hopping from foot to foot as she watched the men clear the small pile of debris that had fallen to block the secondary entrance to the mine on the other side of the mountain. The main entrance was impassable but this one looked like it would grant them entrance into the caverns. Of course there was no telling how far inside they would be able to breach.

'Penelo are you sure you should…?'

She turned around to face the person who had slipped up alongside her and her gaze alone strangled off the question, 'I'm going in Vaan. A caved in mine is not the worse place I've ever been in, as you know.'

Vaan didn't argue and simply nodded his head and looked over to where members of Ashe's body guard, Basch, and the Bervenia resistance and Rozzarian military were clearing the entrance to the mine. Fran stood close by and was the first to slip through the gap they created before anyone could stop her. The Viera's ears were twitching as she was swallowed by the darkness of the mine and Penelo imagined she was straining her keen senses for any sense of Balthier's presence.

Penelo ran forward, Vaan at her side, and moved to follow Fran. Basch stepped into her path and she glared at him with unabashed, and unaccustomed, fury.

'I'm going in there.'

Basch almost smiled, the slightly dry twitch of his lips, 'No doubt, but you must take this,' he handed her a pack and a small lantern, 'and we should travel in teams. We do not know what damage the shafts have taken and no one should travel alone.'

Penelo nodded perfunctorily. She did not care whose team she was in so long as they did not get in her way. A harsh wind tore across the empty field beside the small entrance howling over the grasslands as the sun began to set, bloodily, behind her back. The biting gale nipped at the back of her legs and scraped over the folds of her borrowed skirt.

Head up Penelo walked into the darkness of the mine and within the slightly sheltered entranceway she lit her lantern. Sulphurous yellow light danced over jagged rock walls seamed with faint twinklings of magicite and caught in the heavy firmament of rock dust from the explosion that weighed down the air.

Basch followed her into the mine and she was distantly relieved that at least she would have a friend with her. The next person to slip into the cavern halted all progress however and in the current circumstances Penelo would hesitate to call her 'friend'.

'I am your queen and I say I am going.' Ashe snapped sharply to one of the Dalmascan guards who tried to pull her back out of the cave, 'Unhand me immediately.' she hissed in a voice like thin ice cracking. The guard swiftly complied.

'Majesty it is too dangerous you cannot risk your person for the likes of a sky pirate.'

Vaan stepped past Ashe and stopped to look between Penelo and their queen, 'I'll go with her, and she'll be with Judge Magister Gabranth and Penelo.' Vaan shrugged casually, 'It's not like Penelo and me don't have experience helping to protect our queen, and Gabranth is Larsa's protector and Larsa is ally to Dalmasca.'

Ashe shot a less than friendly look Vaan's way at the mention of his and Penelo 'protecting her' but kept quiet as she knew that Vaan had made an excellent point.

Penelo had no idea what she was going to say until the words left her lips, 'You're wrong you know.' She said softly addressing the Dalmascan guard but fixing her gaze on Ashe, 'The Dalmascan queen has a very good reason for risking her life for a sky pirate.'

That reason was guilt and it was written all over Ashe's face, whispering in her voice and obvious in the way she held herself. Her manipulations had created this whole situation.

Even in the dim light it was possible to see Ashe's eyes widen in response to Penelo's words and the steady, heated look in the other blonde's eyes. In that one reaction Penelo knew that Ashe was here because she knew that Balthier's presence in the mine was her fault. All of this was her fault and if Balthier hadn't managed to slip away from another near death encounter Penelo made a solemn, silent vow, to make Ashe pay for it.

In the heavy silence that followed Basch, under the guise of his brother, cleared his throat and spoke with the utmost diplomacy, 'Perhaps if one of the Dalmascan Knights of Order would like to accompany us that would resolve the issue?'

Penelo stopped listening to the dickering between Ashe's personal guard, Ashe, Basch and Vaan and instead forged on into the cramped darkness, holding her lantern before her as she travelled down the passageway.

Despite the thick, choking dust and the murky heat crowding the low narrow passage the shaft itself seemed to be intact. She had not gone too far ahead before Basch, Vaan and Ashe along with one anonymous guard caught up. Their lanterns danced over the shimmering walls casting strange and eerie shadows.

'The explosion could not have been so severe,' Ashe ventured carefully, 'there does not seem to be any damage here and the mine is not that large.'

'It's deep though,' Vaan pointed out, 'One of Vivaldino's people told me that it goes down several hundred feet. Maybe the explosion happened in the lower levels?'

'We must keep alert, regardless.' Basch murmured managing when they came to a cross-roads where the passageway opened up and separated into three different paths to get ahead of Penelo. His broad shouldered figure prevented her from getting ahead of him again and he looked at her sternly.

'We must all be careful; I will lead. You will be no good to Balthier if you fall and hurt yourself before we can reach him.'

Penelo could not argue against that although she wanted to. Instead she followed close behind Basch as he led the way along the middle passageway seemingly arbitrarily picking that path instead of the other two.

They had travelled no more than a few dozen feet into the passageway, which bent and sloped downward sharply, before Penelo began to pick out the unmistakable staccato clicks of high heels over stone floor. A moment later Fran rounded a corner in the curving tunnel and stepped into the light of all five humes' lanterns.

She regarded them serious, her dark skin glowing mahogany in the lamp light and her white hair gleaming in the darkness behind her.

'Glad am I it was you who approached. I have found something.'

Without another word she turned, tossing her hair behind her and led off along the passageway. Penelo briefly wondered how she managed to navigate through the thick, hot darkness without a lantern of her own, but then realised that Fran did not need to see to find her way. She was probably just sniffing Balthier out.

Penelo hurried forward after Fran's retreating clicking heels, managing to slip around Basch who muttered something under his breath and quickened his steps to keep up as did Ashe and Vaan and the nameless guard.

When Penelo's lantern, swinging wildly from her hand, landed on Fran who was crouching low by a pile of fallen boulders Penelo's heart dropped into her stomach when she took in the collapsed mine shaft passage and the deep drop off point a little to the left.

The lantern light, quivering in her hand, her fingers clenched painfully tight about the handle and her arm aching with lactic acid build up from holding the light, fell onto the object that Fran knelt alongside.

For a moment Penelo could not make sense of it then she realised what she looked at was the top upper portion of a man's body sticking out from under the pile of collapsed debris from the caved in shaft.

'Oh….please no……it's not…' she whispered heart twisting violently and the blood singing in her ears as her eyes caught sight of white sleeves and a dark head under the wavering fall of the lantern light.

'It is not,' Fran's voice firm and steady brought Penelo back to reality just as she thought she might faint dead away. Fran rose to her feet and regarded them solemnly. 'I know this man not, but suspect he is kin to the Duke of Avenlieu.'

'Is he dead?' Ashe asked quietly.

'Yes.' Fran walked away from the body half covered in rubble and stalked over to the edge of the sheer drop off a few feet away. Penelo followed with her eyes and saw in the lantern light that Fran's nose was quivering. The Viera dropped down on the ground at the edge of the drop and sniffed, bringing her face close enough to the ground before the edge that her hair scraped the gritty ground.

'A light,' Fran commanded shifting to her weight to take a breath of the air over the edge of the hole. Her ears quivered and her whole body seemed alert and tension filled.

Penelo hurried over with her lantern extended and as she approached the edge and the light spilled over to splash across the cascade of rock, falling like an uneven staircase down into the impossibly deep hole, she saw that there was a shelf about forty feet below them, scattered with fallen rock and stone. The jutting shelf and the sheer walls of the hole glittered with magicite; darkness streaked with pure silver and rainbow light.

Fran's hand latched around Penelo's, supporting and turning her arm that held the lantern so that the light moved in a slow sweep over the hole and the spill of rocks on the opposite side of the fissure. The others swiftly came over to the edge and followed the arc of her lamp light with their own lanterns.

'There!' Ashe (who did not have a lantern – instead letting her guard shed light for her) pointed across the narrow, but deep chasm towards a large rock, the size of a small carriage. 'Do you see?'

At first Penelo could not see anything except rock but then she realised where Ashe had directed the light from the lantern she had roughly snatched from her guard. A pale hand, palm up and fingers half curled like the languid petals of some macabre flower was just visible on the ground of the extremely narrow cleft that formed the base of the rock staircase.

Penelo whipped her head around to face Fran, 'Is it?'

She nodded, 'I smell his blood.'

'Balthier? Balthier can you hear me?'

The echoes of her cry part sob of relief and part naked terror bounced across the chasm but he did not answer and not even his little finger twitched in response. That hand, waxen and still, looked much like the hand of the body behind her, stretched out across the ground as if he had tried to claw his way out from under the fall of rocks. It looked like the hand of a dead man.

'We need rope or some other means of getting across that gap.' Ashe announced her voice sharp with command as if she could conjure such equipment merely through force of will alone.

Fran had stalked away from the group pacing to where the cleft in the ground was narrower and from the sway of her hips and the tilt of her head Penelo thought Fran was sizing up the possibility of jumping.

'Fran wait!'

Penelo threw out one hand as the Viera launched herself, with sinuous grace, out into the darkness. Penelo caught her breath hard as she watched Fran leap the gap, hair streaming behind her and land, with a scrabble of stiletto heels, on the other side. Without even glancing back Fran swiftly and nimbly began to clamber down the uneven staircase of rock towards Balthier.

Half way down her expression shifted, Penelo saw her freeze momentarily in her descent, the slightest widening of her eyes all the evidence Penelo needed to confirm that Fran had caught her first glimpse of Balthier. Whatever the other woman had seen it actually seemed to have scared the Viera. Penelo was moving before she had time to think.

She ran along her side of the cleft in the cavern that seemed to seep down to the darkest heart of Ivalice, she followed the path Fran had taken watching the other side and trying to work out how much of a run up she would need to clear the distance even as she completely ignored Vaan shouting warnings after her.

* * *

_Simple is as simple does but only rarely and never when it's needed. _

With the words of the incantation for Float trilling off the tip of her tongue Penelo threw herself bodily over the gap twisting her body and flailing her arms and legs to get as much height on the jump as she could. With the float spell activated the force of gravity was muted but as the far side of the broken cavern seemed to increase in distance from her, dangling as she was in a frozen moment in empty air, Penelo realised that float would not help with the momentum she needed to reach the other side.

Time stood still and then lurched forward at tremendous speed as Penelo's feet hit the floor over the other side of the jump and she pitched faced first onto the shale and slate floor to tumble head over heels to a painful halt.

Penelo was only just picking her self up and trying to shake sense back into her head after the jump when Vaan, desperate war cry still on his lips, rocketed over the gap to land just as painfully beside her.

'Penelo that was so dangerous!' Vaan admonished her completely forgetting that, to have landed so soon after her, he had to have made his own leap at almost exactly the same time. Vaan helped her up but she swiftly disengaged from him to hurry over to the fall of stones.

She had slithered over only three of the large boulders at the top of the rocky pyramid when she caught slight of Fran leaning over the sprawled figure laying unnaturally positioned on his back; white shirt luridly bright in the faint lamp light. Fran's body blocked Penelo's view of Balthier's face and most of his body; she could only clearly make out his right arm angled away from his body, the hand of which had given away his location, and his legs, poking out.

As she skidded down the stones, Vaan at her heels, Fran shifted away a little granting Penelo an unobstructed view of Balthier's ruined body.

'Oooooh; oh gods no.'

Penelo's visceral gasp tore her throat to ribbons and she collapsed heavily onto her knees like a broken marionette. The sharp spiky ground, littered with pointed protrusions of calcified magicite deposits of various length, cut into her bare shins but she ignored the slight pain.

In her short life Penelo had seen some horrible injuries. She had seen people die in almost every imaginable way, but nothing she had ever seen could have prepared her for the sight of proud, impeccably groomed and coiffed, handsome and refined Balthier lying so still, so uncomfortably on a bed of magicite spikes, his clothes shredded and his skin translucently pale under the sheen of blood coating him.

It was the jagged, twisted spike of glittering pinkish pale magicite protruding from his side that ripped Penelo's composure to shreds, however. Balthier's left hand was limply curled around the point where the spike had burst through his flesh and his face was turned away, towards the darkness. Blood congealed at the corners of his mouth and coated his chin and his eyes were closed.

Penelo crawled across the shelf floor on her hands and knees, trying to breathe through her nose as she bit down on her lip. She ended up with her back pressed against the boulder that had obscured Balthier from view from the other side as she wedged herself between the rock and his body trying to reach him.

Penelo reached out to place one shaking hand against his chest and whimpered wetly with relief when his chest rose in shallow breath. He was alive!

Grinning inanely in sheer dumb relief Penelo contorted her body even further so she could press her cheek against his chest to catch the reassuring thump of his heart beat.

'………do you mind?' the words were not so much heard as felt, the vibration rippling from his chest to her ear as Penelo froze in shock, 'I'm quite…..' the slightest hiss of pain as the body underneath her shifted fractionally, 'quite…..uncomfortable enough without you leaning on me.'

Penelo jerked up so fast she almost gave herself whip-lash. Her own wide eyes fell upon familiar brown orbs, dull with pain but still enlivened by the spark of self-deprecating humour that she knew so well. Penelo choked on a laugh and heedlessly seized up his left hand clutching it in both of hers.

'Balthier you're awake?' Vaan had managed to wriggle along the outside of the large boulder and appeared at the space where Balthier's right hand had been lying out into space. Balthier rolled his eyes up to look at Vaan in a way that did not require him to move very much.

'Yes Vaan,' despite the breathiness of his voice the disdain was still evident, 'and I am thrilled to discover,' Balthier bit back a groan of pain, 'that your capacity for stating the bloody obvious has not diminished in the slightest.'

Summarily dismissing Vaan Balthier turned his head to look over to Fran who had been gently probing the point, underneath Balthier, where the spike had entered his body all the while.

'Have you all come here merely to make inane comments in regards my….' A spasm of pain choked off his speech and his hand tightened reflexively around Penelo's, '….misfortune, or is there any chance of a curative or some other assistance, I wonder?'

Fran caught and maintained eye contact with Balthier as she spoke gravely, 'The magicite is too wide at its base to be broken and we have not the tools to cut it away. Thus, as we cannot remove the spike _from_ you we are forced to remove _you_ from the spike.'

Balthier closed his eyes and nodded minutely, 'Yes, I was afraid you were going to say that Fran.' A hissing sigh escaped his lips and he seemed to almost unconsciously squeeze Penelo's hand a little tighter where she clasped his sandwiched between her two palms.

'Why is it that nothing is ever simple?'

Balthier opened his eyes then and fixed Penelo with shockingly frank and naked regard. She had the feeling right then that the question had a great deal more to do with the two of them then it did with their current predicament and it scared her almost as much as seeing his injuries. It scared her because she could not answer him but knew, deep down, that the answer was going to be painful.


	18. Chapter 18

_Remember, remember it's not the monster under the bed, but the one in your head to fear._

Balthier was a physically brave man, this was not egotism talking but simple truth. He had proved his capacity to withstand extraordinary physical hardship and pain. The trick of course, as anyone who has had the misfortune to find themselves in extraordinary physical distress knows, is that when in unendurable agony one is usually too busy trying not to die to really think about just how much horrible pain they are in. Sheer bloody-minded survival is its own bravery.

That was the state Balthier now found himself in, hovering languidly on the razor cusp of shock, floating on the edge of unconsciousness and wondering if he did succumb to said temporary respite of oblivion, would he be able to crawl back out of it?

'Balthier please say something.'

It occurred to him that he must have his eyes closed as he could not see Penelo's ghost white face peering down on him, eyes wide with the fear she would not allow to touch her voice or countenance when in the guise of the efficient little healer he knew her to be. He thought about opening his eyes and acquiescing to her request with some manner of response but somewhere in the vagaries of thinking and acting the intention faded and silence reigned by default.

Penelo, or someone, was repeatedly running fingers through his hair, which was soaked with sweat; the strands which usually stood to attention of their own accord now flopped limply over his brow, sticking to his perspiration coated skin. It was uncomfortable and he appreciated the gesture of whomever it was keeping the hair from his face.

'He's not answering but I don't think he's unconscious; there's too much tension in his muscles.'

'He hears us,' Fran's voice was almost strident with concentration as it always was when he was hurt and she was forced to extricate him from a messy situation of his own making – he knew the cadence of her speech like he knew his own. Should he survive this particular unfortunate situation he would likely die a slow protracted death under the weight of her silent (but pointed) irritation thereafter.

'So why won't he answer?' Vaan's voice – and must the brat speak so bloody loudly?

'Because he knows what we must do to free him and conserves his strength.'

'What does he need his strength for? We're the ones that have to lift him.'

'Precisely, but it is Balthier whose body will go into immediate shock once we move him. We also have no way of knowing how much internal damage that spike has caused him. If he is not ready when we lift him the shock could kill him.'

Basch joined the round-table discussion, much to Balthier's annoyance. Had they forgotten he was _impaled _on a foot long piece of magicite and in need of immediate medical attention? It was almost enough to force him to rejoin the conversation, except for the fact that Fran and Basch were right: he knew what was coming and was afraid to speak lest his nerve give out.

Surely a slow meandering death stuck on a pointy piece of rock was better than being manhandled by a group of people he didn't trust so far as he could throw (Fran and Penelo notwithstanding)? The notion that he must put his faith in Vaan and Basch disturbed him greatly….and he suspected that her majesty (whom rightly or wrongly he was not feeling particularly warmly towards) was hovering somewhere close by, thankfully silent for the time being.

'Basch – Vaan, please, _he can hear you_!'

Penelo's voice almost snapped with anger and Balthier was almost tempted to peel open an eyelid so he could see the expression on her face. He had but rarely heard her so obviously angry, and yet, paradoxically controlled. It was a side of Penelo he liked; that practical, calm and self-sufficient little scrapper who could fight as well as any man when she had too. Alas he rarely saw so much as a glimpse of her true steel under normal circumstances and this situation was not the ideal time to savour the spectacle.

'……he can hear you….but he is not listening with any interest….' Balthier didn't bother to open his eyes as he spoke because speaking and looking at the same time was too much a drain on his dwindling reserves of energy, but he felt an intervention was necessary nevertheless.

'….would it be too much of an imposition to ask if you could speed this process up a tad?......I would like to be rid of this piece of rock sticking out of me, if you don't mind…..'

Embarrassed silence was almost audible as he imagined the looks of chagrin on Basch and Vaan's faces. Fran, he had no doubt, had never stopped working on whatever preparations she had to make before pulling him free of the spear of magicite.

'Balthier…..we……well,' Penelo was leaning over him, he could tell because her hair was tickling against his lips, 'the magicite….you know it negates magick and well, Vaan and I used all our magick on the Float spell to reach you and…..'

He managed to summon a crooked smile, eyes still closed. Penelo's distress was vaguely gratifying. It was oddly comforting to know someone cared enough for his wellbeing to be upset on his behalf.

'……and now there is none left to heal me once I am free of this…..impediment…' he finished for her saving her the unpleasantness of giving bad news, 'Yes, sweetheart, _believe_ me I know well what I'm in for.'

'I'm sorry,' Penelo whispered brokenly and the ends of her hair shivered across his lips making his skin twitch. Balthier swallowed a painful urge to laugh and opened his eyes a little to look at her.

'…..and what do you have to be sorry for, hmm? I believe you tried to stop me coming here and I ignored you.'

Penelo's face, filling his entire field of vision, contorted with pain and hurt. She shook her head rapidly her eyes wide with the effort to hold back her tears and her cheeks were, in the dull light of various handheld lanterns, red and shiny.

'I'm not going to say 'I told you so'.' She told him angrily and Balthier actually found a genuine grin touching his features.

'…..why ever not? I would take the opportunity while you can, darling. I certainly would.'

Penelo looked torn between hurt, anger, and the slightest whisper of exasperated amusement. 'Fine, then I'll say it once we're all out of this place safely.' She sniffed dismally but managed to award him a wane smile.

She sat back on her knees and he followed her with his eyes. Watching her served as a good distraction as Fran, Basch and Vaan stood off to the side in a huddle, deep in strategy over how they would haul him off the spike of magicite. He did not want to hear that discussion in the slightest.

'…..penetrated a kidney; perhaps. He will begin to bleed out as soon as….'

Balthier squeezed his eyes more tightly closed and fumbled one handed to grasp Penelo's hand, 'Talk to me sweetheart.' He opened his eyes once more and fixed his gaze on her.

Penelo had caught some of the conversation as well and looked even paler as she turned back to him.

'What should I say?' she whispered and Balthier fought down a bitter laugh.

'For the gods own sake, Penelo, say anything at all.' He tightly reined in his own emotions and let out a careful breath that nevertheless ended in a wince and hitch as it felt like the spike through his flesh jarred inside him. He opened his eyes again and looked straight up at her, 'Talk to me.'

_Because I'm afraid_, he added silently, _and still have too much pride that I do not want to show it. I want to hear your voice because you are uniquely able to make me feel better regardless of the situation._

All this he thought as he threaded his fingers weakly through hers, but did not say. He could not say it, pride and artifice still held him tightly bound, but for the first time in his life he hoped that the woman before him would be able to _see_ what he could not say.

* * *

_A candle in the dark can be greater than the brightest fire to those whose darkness grows too deep within._

'Talk to me.'

He said and Penelo swallowed around the huge lump in her throat that threatened to choke her completely. She felt his fingers twine with hers, a fine tremor running through his fingers the only sign, aside from his paleness, and the sweat dappling his top lip that he was in terrible pain. As she struggled to find some comfort, some way of providing support and being of use to him, Balthier's thumb began to idly trail a circular pattern over her palm.

'……..Vivaldino's men are bringing materials to create a makeshift bridge and stretcher, but still it will not be a simple matter to bring him out.'

'What cannot be changed cannot be changed; when he must Balthier will endure much.'

'Yeah, but he's not looking good…..I mean his skin is kind of yellowish already and…'

'…..oh, that's bloody marvellous.'

Penelo looked to Balthier sharply, only then realising she had turned her head away as if to escape the strains of conversation from beyond. She turned back to see Balthier's crooked smirk gracing his lips and his dark eyes, pain dulled, but filled with a self-deprecating mirth. '…..it is not enough that I am in this dire situation, but now I am being criticised on my appearance by bloody _Vaan_ of all people.'

'How can you joke about this?'

She asked, not angrily but with genuine confusion. She had never understood how he could be so blasé about life and death. Penelo herself had seen horrible things; she had looked her own almost certain death straight in the eye more times than she ever should have had to at only twenty-one years of age, but for all that she had never learned to be so callous as to laugh in the face of death.

Balthier was watching her with sympathy in his gaze. The expression, so unlike him, and the affection and softness in his brown eyes was almost too much for Penelo. He squeezed her fingers gently.

'Sweetheart if you can take no other wisdom from our acquaintance then be sure to mark this: life and death are nothing but divine comedy. Do not make the mistake of taking it all too seriously; you will only hurt all the more that way.'

'Why aren't you scared?' she whispered, hunkering down so she could lay, almost supine, beside him. She clasped his hand in hers and his steady brown gaze became a lifeline for her.

His lips twitched upward at the corners, 'Who said I'm not?' he murmured in low rich tones, confiding and gentle. 'I have no desire to die Penelo, but I might yet do so very shortly. I would be a fool not to be afraid.'

Penelo forced herself not to look down at the horrible jagged spear of rock that had pierced his body so completely. She was afraid if she did she would fall apart. She did not quite understand why but she knew that his death would destroy her.

She had lost her whole family, watched them die one by one in the war. She had seen her homeland overrun by the enemy and she had faced the terrors of Bahamut and never, ever, felt anything like this. It felt like she was dying. It felt like all the world was coming to an end. She could not breathe and her heart hurt as colours bright as distant stars pin-wheeled before her eyes.

'Now, now, dearest, no sobbing, I'm not dead yet.' The dry retort forced Penelo back to herself and she stared at him silently aghast.

'You can't die.' She whispered helplessly.

Balthier's teeth flashed in a roguish smile, 'I think you'll find that I can. We humes are born with an innate ability to die.'

He chuckled harshly and she watched as pain lanced across his features briefly. She tensed as he did, her breath caught as he caught his and she did not breathe again until the pain tautness faded from his features and he breathed out carefully once more, opening his eyes to look on her once again.

'There's nothing I can do.' Penelo told him, the outburst and the vehemence startling her as she gripped his hand as tightly as she dared.

'I should have remembered that magicite absorbs magick….I should have….' She closed her eyes and tried to gather her thoughts. When she opened her eyes again Balthier was watching her still with that soft look in his eyes.

'And I should have had the commonsense not to be caught in an explosion in the first place,' he replied, his eyes were warm.

'Penelo if you would like to take the blame for my stupidity I will not stop you, but do not bore us both with your self-recrimination.' He quirked his lips sardonically, 'If this is to be my last moment I would rather not spend it listening to a woman whine, if you don't mind, hmm.'

A surge of pure, unadulterated fury coursed through her and she sat up sharply, 'Now wait a min….' she swallowed the rest of what she had been about to say when she saw the amusement dancing in his eyes. She frowned, 'You did that on purpose. You're trying to distract me from what's happening.'

Balthier smiled slightly as he closed his eyes turning his face away for a moment, 'I must be losing my touch, or else you are becoming more adept at reading my manipulations.'

Penelo stared down at this man with his sharp angular features drawn in pain, his breathing shallow and his skin sallow. She stared down on him almost hoping that she could stare through his skin and bone to the soul within. She wanted to grasp at the core of this man who could be so very, very selfish. So callous and conceited and yet, during a time when he had every right to be self-absorbed, he reached out to her and gave her comfort.

She did not understand him at all, sometimes she did not even like him, but she found that she could not imagine how she had lived most of her life with no Balthier. It was like trying to dance without music. She knew the steps and could make all the right moves, but what was the point without the melody to dance to?

'I really, really love you.' she whispered placing her hand over his heart. He opened his eyes and this time she could see right to the depths of his exhaustion, his pain laid bare……and still he smiled, no, he _smirked_.

'I know, but that is a problem for another time I think.' He winked then, a rake and a scoundrel even when in desperate pain.

Penelo giggled despite herself but anything she might have said in response died on her lips when Fran crouched down beside Balthier's head and reached out one hand to stroke his cheek. Balthier rolled his eyes up to look at Fran. Penelo sat back as Fran leaned her own face down towards him, her long silvered hair forming a curtain hiding their exchange from view.

'It is time to be off, Balthier, we quit this place now.'

Fran's voice held an almost teasing warmth and intimacy Penelo had only heard but a handful of times before and only ever when she addressed her partner. Penelo did not need to see Balthier's answering grin to feel it and hear its warmth.

'About time, Fran, I was growing a trifle restive lying about here. But first, where is the Judge?'

Vaan and Basch had gathered closer and Penelo briefly caught the expression of bemused surprise that passed across Basch's features as Fran withdrew so Balthier could meet Basch's eyes.

'Ah, there you are your honour,' Balthier's voice had grown tight with pain and his breathing was rapid and uneven but the tone he used was jovial and unconcerned, even now. 'A word before we begin?'

Basch frowned, 'Aye, what is it?'

Balthier's grin was lost almost instantly in pain that he refused to allow into his speech. 'Larsa's gil……no one knows where it is but me. I thought I'd mention that now, just in case.'

It took Penelo a second to realise what he meant and she could see that Basch too needed a moment before he could react. 'Gods be damned man, must you scheme even now?' He growled.

Again the smirk flashed like quicksilver across Balthier's greying face, 'I may well be dead in but a moment, forgive me if I feel the need to take precautions to ensure my continued survival, hmm.'

Basch shook his head disgustedly, 'I would not play ducks and drakes with your life Balthier. Bastard you may be but I do not forget that it was you who gave me back my freedom in Nalbina.'

Balthier scoffed lightly and Penelo was stunned to find that he could spare the energy to be contemptuous of Basch's nobility at a time like this, 'That is……hnn….that is precisely the point……' his voice was growing thready.

'Balthier we must move,' Fran interjected sharply and the open alarm in her voice sent a shard of pure ice-fear through Penelo. She started in surprise when Vaan took her by the shoulders and moved her back a few paces so he could crouch in spot she had vacated by Balthier, ready to take his share of his weight when they lifted him.

As Basch took his own place in readiness Balthier craned his neck to fix the man with a hard, bright look. 'Remember your duty, Judge Gabranth, as a citizen of Archadia I expect….no….I _demand_, you fulfil the duty Lord Larsa dispatched you to perform.'

Penelo had no idea what Balthier meant, what 'duty' of Basch's that could be so important to him, but it seemed to her, as Basch's face twisted in a complex expression of understanding and affront that the former Knight understood perfectly.

'Aye, I see the web of it all now; I'll do my duty, though it pleases me not.'

Everything happened very quickly after that, and yet, every moment would be etched in sensory memory upon Penelo's mind evermore.

Balthier's strength seemed to finally fail him and he slumped into unconsciousness. Vaan, Fran and Basch clustered about Balthier's body obscuring Penelo's view. Vaan moving to take hold of Balthier's legs as Basch shifted to move to his head and Fran moved to his mid-rift where she could monitor the progress as they eased his body up off the spike and support the weight of his torso as they lifted him.

Penelo had always secretly thought herself to be brave. She was a healer and a veteran of a war that saw ancient gods overthrown and an Empire reborn from the embers of tyranny. She knew that she should be helping, either to lift Balthier or to use her healers training to make sure he survived the experience, and yet she could not. She could not even watch and instead hurried away to the place where the Bervenians, Ashe, and her guards, had constructed an awkward rope bridge across the chasm and were now easing a stretcher across the bridge.

Penelo threw herself into the act of helping them do this as blatant distraction. It did not help; she could imagine what was happening behind her with almost more clarity than if she witnessed the actions themselves.

She could imagine the slow, awkward progress as Vaan, Basch, and Fran inched Balthier off the spike. She could imagine in her minds eye watching that jagged pale spear disappearing back into and through Balthier's body; she imagined the blood that would pour from the wound unhindered once the spike was removed. She imagined something going wrong and the seemingly solid stake of rock snapping inside him, jarring into soft tissue, killing him instantly.

Penelo breathed through her nose as she fussed pointlessly with a paltry supply of potions that had been scavenged at short notice. Her hands shook hopelessly and one of the bottles dropped from her fingers to shatter on the ground. Mutely Penelo stared at the shards until she felt a light, tentative touch on her shoulder and spun about to meet the clear, lucent grey gaze of her queen.

'He'll live; he is too stubborn to die and has too much to gain from living.' Ashe told her simply and Penelo felt a surge of anger for her queen.

'He was only here at all because of you.' she snapped unwisely and completely uncaring that what she was about to say probably amounted to treason, 'All this; Bervenia, the mine, it was all what you wanted!'

'I don't deny Dalmasca's aims played a part, but Balthier does nothing without a multitude of motivations. He had his own reasons for being here and his own desires. It was merely convenient to make everyone think he was doing this for me.'

Ashe watched Penelo calmly as she spoke, seemingly unconcerned that anyone could hear the Queen of Dalmasca being berated by one of the citizens. Of course no one was paying any attention to the two women, at least not while the skewered sky pirate was putting on more of a show.

Penelo shook her head harshly, hands balling into fists. She could not dispute what Ashe said, Balthier had more or less admitted he had his own reasons for wanting the magicite mine – or at least for wanting to involve himself in Bervenia's troubles - but still Penelo did not want to let Ashe off the hook that easily.

'If he dies you'll be partly responsible, whatever you say.'

Ashe nodded gravely, 'If he dies I'll take that burden of guilt gladly.'

Her expression lightened and she once again reached out to touch Penelo on the forearm almost awkwardly, 'I never intended any of this. You have been friend to me indeed, Penelo, and I never meant any insult to you by my actions.'

Penelo jerked back as if burned as she realised that Ashe referred not just to Balthier and Penelo's own inadvertent involvement in these schemes but also, tacitly, about Vaan. A flicker of new anger lit within her.

'If you hurt him you'll have me to deal with.'

Penelo knew the threat was hardly impressive but she meant it completely. If Ashe used and hurt Vaan the way she had done Balthier, Penelo was not sure what she would do but she promised herself that it would make the predations of the empire seem mild in comparison.

Ashe must have read some of Penelo's intent in her eyes however, for the older woman nodded once jerkily and withdrew, turning away from Penelo without another word. It was just as well for it was at that very moment that the entire cavern filled to bursting with the sound of Balthier's agonised scream.


	19. Chapter 19

_If life and death are divine comedy then someone should complain: the joke has worn flat and no here is laughing._

Penelo gnawed intently on her lip, she no longer felt the dull spike of pain as she ulcerated the skin and she had long since become used to the taste of thin copper blood in her mouth.

As she sat next to the medical bed in the huge Imperial airship Alexander, the sound of glossair engines thrumming through the walls and the sense of the massive machinery weighing down on her like a physical presence, Peenlo chewed her lip in silence and tried to make sense of all that had happened and all that might happen still. Her thoughts kept churning, restlessly, monotonously going over and over recent history and still she could scarce make sense of it.

She remembered how desperately relieved she had felt to see daylight again as she helped to bring limp, silent, pale as death, Balthier out of the mine. Her relief had been short-lived however as no sooner were they out and she and Fran had ensured that Balthier would not bleed to death then did the Duke Avenlieu accuse Balthier of killing his son. Penelo remembered holding her hands to the gushing wound in Balthier's side as all around her men drew arms and faced off against each other flinging accusations of guilt left, right, and centre.

She remembered how, in the very instant Penelo felt sure that the Avenlieu supporters and the Bervenian resistance would attack one another Balthier had awoken. She remembered how he had smiled thinly and whispered so only she and Fran (also tending to him at the time) could hear:

'Show time,'

Things had happened so fast then and Penelo had already been struggling to keep up as it was. Somehow the two warring factions had realised Balthier was awake. Avenlieu had tried to strike Balthier with his sword and Penelo had thrown herself across him – of course the Duke had not even come close to landing a blow, Ashe's guards and even some of the Rozzarian soldiers Al-Cid had sent to Bervenia, stopped him, wresting the sword from him.

It was then that Basch had stepped forward, with everyone screaming insults and accusations back and forth. He had raised his borrowed sword (not the twin bladed weapon of Gabranth – but nevertheless effective in Basch's skilled hands) and driven it into the gritty soil by Balthier's head attracting everyone's attention.

'This man is wanted for crimes against the Archadian Empire; he will be returned to stand trial in Archades. All other grievances any other parties may wish to bring against the defendant will be heard by the Archadian judiciary during the arraignment and not before.'

Penelo would never forget the smile that lit Balthier's features then, the look of triumph as Basch performed the 'duty' that Balthier had so wanted him to perform. It was then that she had realised that Balthier had known all along what would happen as soon as they escaped the mine and had already been planning his 'escape'. At that moment she almost hated him for being so unutterably conniving.

'You cannot be serious,' the Duke, a man in his sixties with heavy jowls and a double chin had gone quite red in the face and renewed his struggles against the Dalmascan Knights who held him, at this statement from Basch. 'That man killed my son; I demand he pay for his crimes. I demand to see justice done!'

'I haven't killed anyone,' Balthier had not been able to sit up as Fran bandaged his gut wound but he raised his voice imperiously to be heard over the din. 'In fact it was your son who tried to kill me when I encountered the man in the mine.'

'Liar.'

Avenlieu had nearly dislocated both shoulders in his attempt to wrench free of the men holding him. Balthier had turned his head to meet Avenlieu's eyes as the old man was borne to the ground, and even flat on his back and shaking from blood-loss he was resplendent in his arrogance, 'Yes, frequently, but not about this. I did not kill your son, Duke Avenlieu; he died in the cave-in.'

It was then that Penelo remembered the body half crushed under the rubble in the cave, not far from where they had found Balthier. She had realised then that that must have been the Duke of Avenlieu's son and presumably the person who had planted the real explosives.

Basch stood beside Balthier with his hands folded over the hilt of his sword, implacable and cold as any Judge Magister even without his armour. His stance was one of quiet readiness and he radiated competence and determination; no one in their right mind would want to challenge Basch when he looked like that and even Avenlieu subsided.

'This man is guilty of theft against the Empire of his birth. He has stolen goods from the Imperial Emperor himself and attempted to take hostage a Magister of the realm,' Basch glanced briefly at Penelo and the expression in his pale blue eyes was unreadable, 'he has also used coercion to force an innocent woman to assist him in his endeavours and for these crimes he will be tried by the edicts of Archadian law.'

Balthier laughed shakily in the aftermath of Basch's speech and for the first time Penelo wondered if he was entirely rational, 'Hmm, I have been busy this last month, haven't I?' with a flourish he raised both arms and presented Basch with his wrists ready to be shackled.

'Your honour Gabranth I whole-heartedly and without reservation place myself into your custody. I would stand up but I'm afraid I cannot feel my legs at the present time.'

Basch stared at Balthier with something approaching contempt as Balthier laughed again, almost drunkenly. It was Fran who placed fingers against her partner's lips to stop any further unwise words and it occurred to Penelo that he was probably punch drunk from blood-loss and shock.

'Shh, foolish hume, do not overplay your hand,' Fran murmured in gentle reproach and Balthier rolled his eyes up to see her properly.

'Ahh, Fran, it is all so easy….so….' something dark and slightly sickened passed over his expression, 'it is all so pointless and I want it done.' He sighed letting his sunken eyes slide close and shuddering with exhaustion.

Penelo, ignored even as she knelt beside Balthier watching the fresh bandaging she had helped Fran dress his wound with begin to soak with blood, felt like an intruder to a private conversation and then felt a surge of anger and bitterness towards both Balthier and Fran. They were always playing their games and they never seemed to care who they hurt in the process.

Oblivious to the emotions surging around them, Fran stroked the side of Balthier's face with her long, clawed hand and he settled almost like a gentled child. 'This is not,' he hissed in pain, '…..not precisely how I hoped to end things but…..but it has its merits…..' he stuttered disjointedly, voice thickened with fatigue.

'Shh,' Fran murmured again leaning close so her long fall of hair once again formed a partial curtain granting their exchange the illusion of privacy. Penelo, from her unheeded vantage point, could still see and hear all however. 'You are sure of this path, Balthier? You shall clip your own wings by your actions.'

It seemed to Penelo that everyone else in the clearing ceased to exist both for her and the two sky pirates. She watched riveted as Balthier swallowed in a hitching breath and nodded his head.

'I wish to be still for a time,' he murmured and the dreamy, vague quality of his voice suggested to Penelo that he was close to unconsciousness and given to be more honest than usual because of it. She strained her ears to listen while remaining still and unnoticed by the pair. '……..flying in circles loses its appeal after a while. This solves so many problems…….it all works so well when one thinks about it…..'

'Then I shall be off to put plans to motion while you cage yourself in Archadia's steel bosom.'

Fran nodded once in perfunctory fashion but her next action was anything but abrupt or dispassionate. As she spoke Fran leaned forward swiftly and to Penelo's shock (and the surprise of Vaan and Basch who had been listening in while Ashe mediated between the feuding rivals Avenlieu and Vivaldino) the Viera kissed Balthier right on the lips before smoothly rising to her magnificent height, turning on her heel and running, fleet of foot, away across the moor before anyone could really react.

Avenlieu had shouted bloody murder and the Rozzarians had tried to pursue her once they noticed her escape, one even loosing an arrow at Fran's fast moving form, but none had a hope of either stopping or catching her and within moments the Viera was gone without trace, even in an open field.

'Fly well Fran,' only Penelo had heard Balthier's whisper or seen his faint smile as he let his eyes close and sunk into unconsciousness. Only Penelo had had the time or the inclination to realise the significance of Fran's departure and what it might mean.

* * *

_Life is not complicated. We are born and then we die, that is not complicated. Only people are complicated and we complicate our lives in turn._

Sitting beside Balthier's sleeping form within the confines of the Alexander almost twelve hours after those events Penelo let the memories slide away. She had refused Ashe's offer to return to Dalmasca with her and instead chosen to go with Basch…and Balthier. She had been an unwilling and often ignorant player in this unfolding drama but she was determined now to find out how it was to end.

Did Balthier really intend to hand himself over to Larsa for sentencing? Surely he knew that he could face life imprisonment or worse? Penelo could not even begin to work out what he was thinking or why Fran had abandoned him so suddenly. Surely he had some trick up his sleeve…..some devious scheme that would turn everything on its head and see him commandeering the Alexander and using the Archadian flagship to make good another outrageous escape.

Looking down on Balthier, sound asleep and almost as pale as the uniform white bedding underneath him, Penelo realised that as angry as she was, as frustrated and hopelessly hurt as she was, she could not bear the thought of Balthier locked up indefinitely. Somehow, despite all his shortcomings, all his flaws, she found that she could not hate him or want harm to come to him.

Balthier, oblivious to her hot eyes on him, continued to sleep, breathing evenly and easily as if he was comfortable in his own bunk in the Strahl and not on his way to stand trial in an Archadian court. Penelo wondered what crime he would be accused of precisely: grand theft, kidnapping, piracy…..espionage and sabotage or…..well the list could go on and on, Penelo was sure, and she very much doubted she knew all the things Balthier had done in his time.

Reaching out she lightly traced the sharp curve of his right cheek bone with her fingertip, gliding the pad of her finger over the soft silk of his sideburn and over the pliable suppleness of his cheek to the corner of his mouth. Balthier stirred a little but did not come close to waking under her touch.

Continuing her exploration Penelo rubbed the pad of her thumb over his full bottom lip. She always liked it best on the rare occasions she could watch him sleep. The vulnerability and peacefulness did not really suit him but, at the very least, it brought him down to the level of mere mortals like the rest of them. Stripped of his sharp mind and sharper tongue Balthier was just a man, after all.

She stared into that handsome face in repose and found herself considering many things.

Deep down inside Penelo had wondered more than once if Balthier was bad for her. He had no qualms against using her to further his own ends, he lied when it suited him and he obviously did not respect her very much and yet, and yet, although she knew she did not need him and she could be perfectly happy without him she still found herself completely captivated by him; even now she could not drag herself away from watching him sleep.

Letting her wandering fingers roam away from his face Penelo's fingertips danced down from the sharp point of his chin to the ridge of his collarbone. She skipped a trail down his breastbone, idly tickling her fingers in the sparse stripe of honey brown hair that chased down his chest. Balthier shivered.

'……hnnnn, do you mind?' his eyelids struggled to lift and bleary brown eyes did not quite manage to focus on her before his eyelids tumbled closed once more, '…..that tickles.'

Penelo nipped the inside of her cheek between her teeth hard as Balthier pulled one hand from under the sheets and clasped her hand as it hesitated, hovering guiltily over his chest.

'You should be sleeping,' she admonished weakly.

Balthier smiled faintly, 'Hmmm, I should be, but certain young madams with busy hands don't seem to want to let me sleep in peace.'

Penelo jerked her hand from his loose warm grip angrily. In the space of few words he'd managed to make her feel both lecherous and ridiculous and she was abruptly furious at him for it.

'I'll leave then.' She tried to rise to her feet but Balthier, despite having his eyes closed, managed to make a successful grab for her hand, stilling her motion.

'Where are we?' he forced his eyes open and peered at her, tightening his grip on her wrist and reeling her in closer to his bedside.

'The Alexander – I don't know exactly where we are now, we've been flying for about twelve hours.' She told him through chilled lips.

Balthier nodded but watched her keenly, 'Why are you still here, sweetheart?' puzzlement gave way to a look of what seemed to be genuine alarm upon his face, 'surely Basch has not charged you with- ' he tried to raise up on his elbows.

Penelo pushed him down, freeing her hand to place both her palms flat against his warm shoulders. Balthier let her push him back against the pillows, wincing as his sudden movement aggravated his wound. 'No I'm not being charged with anything; in fact everyone seems to be ignoring me completely – like I'm not here at all.' Her lips twisted almost sardonically, 'pretty much like I was treated when we were fighting Vayne.'

Balthier observed her coolly with one brow cocked, 'I see,' he murmured and Penelo suspected much to her chagrin that he did see. He had always read her like a book – a book that had very few words and lots of easy to understand illustrations. To her surprise Balthier shifted a little in the narrow bunk, as much as he could, and began the slow, careful process of levering himself up into a sitting position. He patted the side of the bed next to him once he was finished.

'Come sit.'

Penelo shook her head. A part of her wanted nothing more than to wriggle onto the bed with Balthier and tuck her head against his shoulder, her cheek pressed to his warm skin and his arm around her, but she did not want to give into that side of her right now. Instead she resumed her seat on the uncomfortable metal stool beside the bed.

Balthier sighed, having watched her refusal and clearly having recognised the reason behind it, 'I suppose I should begin with an apology, hmm?' he quirked an eyebrow surprising Penelo immensely with his opening conversational gambit. Apologies escaped his lips but rarely.

'What would you have to apologise for?' Penelo found herself asking tartly, 'kidnapping me? Lying to me and tricking me and basically using me like a toy in whatever stupid game you are playing, or maybe you're apologising for nearly dying and scaring me half to death?'

As soon as the words left her lips in a hot torrent she slapped her hand over her own mouth with a smothered gasp. She had not known she was going to say any of that and then suddenly the words had just loosed from her in a flood of bitterness.

Balthier's lips twisted but he managed to swallow the smile that tried to escape, which was just as well, Penelo did not think she could be held accountable for her actions if he had dared smirk at her then.

'All of that and more, darling.' He finally murmured voice warm.

Penelo blinked in surprise and he shrugged wryly, the gesture looking odd without his white shirt. 'I would apologise for my actions but I'm afraid the words would ring false,' he met her eyes and that same oddly sympathetic light she had seen in the mine shone from his gaze, 'We both know that I did what I wanted as I always do and any apology after the fact would smack of a self-serving manipulation that is beyond even me.'

Penelo looked down at her lap and her hands twisted together in the folds of her skirt. 'Then what are you apologising for?'

'You,' he told her and Penelo's skittish gaze jumped to his. She stared perplexed into his warm brown eyes and once again, with slight smile curling his lips, he gestured for her to sit on the bed beside him. 'Up you come, dearest, you look so lost and forlorn sitting there and I feel enough of a cad as it is.'

Penelo hesitated for a moment and then gave in to the soft, warm, and persuasive light in his eyes. She settled gingerly on the bed beside him and demurely smoothed her skirt over her legs. Balthier carefully slipped an arm around her and Penelo let herself lean against him.

'Why are you apologising to me…or for me….or whatever you are doing,' she turned her head up trying to catch his eye, 'I don't understand.'

Balthier turned his face into her so he could brush a kiss to the top of her head. 'In the mine you said you loved me….and I dare say you've told me similar in the past and I've probably responded in less than exemplary manner.' He took a breath and Penelo found her heart skipping a beat as she waited for him to continue. 'That is what I'm apologising for: I am sorry that you love me, for I really am not worthy of it.'

Penelo reared up from him, suddenly furious, she pushed away from him and did not care when he winced as she caused him pain. Instead words seared off her tongue in a tangled mass of hurt and annoyance that barely made sense to her, let alone anyone him.

'You don't get to decide that!' she exhorted explosively, 'You can't make me not love you or tell me not to just because you don't like it. No one has the right to tell me that. I can make my own decisions and I'm not a fool, Balthier, I….'

Balthier's fingers pressed against her lips, stemming the wave of words. 'Enough yes, alright.' He interrupted her, voice slightly sharp from the jarring pain she had caused when she shoved away from him and in response to her own loud fury. He frowned a little as he continued in more normal tones, keeping his fingers to her lips. 'Listen before you yell, hmm?'

Penelo pulled back and glared mutely at him, determined not to say a word of what she felt even though she felt like pulling her hair out and screaming until her throat was raw.

Why did no one really understood what it meant to Penelo to love him? Did no one, Balthier included, understand that she knew that, logically, Balthier was about the last man she had any business being in love with?

She was not a fool after all. She knew he was hopelessly conceited and secretive, she knew that she would never have the mind or the inclination to match wits with him or hold him to account for the things he did. She knew all this already; she knew what she stood to lose from continuing to love him even in the face of his very fickle affections. She knew, she even agreed, that logically it was stupid for her to keep doing this to herself.

What no one seemed to understand, and a fact that Penelo knew all to well, was that love was not logical and no amount of rational debate was going to change how she felt. She was completely and hopelessly in love with Balthier. She loved his mind even though she did not understand him, she loved his energy and his drive, she loved to be caught up in the whirlwind of his life, whipped up off her feet in his daring existence and left breathless in the midst of his schemes. She loved all that even as it drove her half crazy.

'I'm listening,' she told him stonily, though she did not really want to hear him speak. She did not want to hear him belittle the greatest and most all-consuming emotion she had ever felt in her entire life.

Stupid and foolhardy it might be but it was hers and ultimately loving him was her choice and there was nothing he could do about it and if she had to beat him round the head until he realised that, well the prospect was definitely growing more appealing by the moment.

'I was trying to apologise to you,' Balthier continued archly watching her keenly and Penelo suspected that he could see all the feelings she was trying to hold within, 'I am sorry that you love me Penelo, but that is not the greatest source of my regret.'

Something in his tone, in the oddly furtive and yet slightly irritated light in his eyes sparked her curiosity, made her suddenly less certain that she could guess what he would say next. Before she could think of anything to say, however, Balthier spoke again almost abstractedly.

'I knew you would be trouble. No one as seemingly sweet but so full of fascinating contradictions as you are could be anything but trouble.'

He told and he sounded extremely put out, before reaching out one hand to stroke her cheek his expression becoming affectionate once more, 'Little Penelo, Vaan's girl; who was not as it happens, anyone's girl at all. You have always been your own woman, haven't you, darling, although perhaps even you do not see it.'

'Balthier…?'

He ignored her tentative question and instead turned his face away, his gaze darting about the sterile and empty façade of the medical bay walls. Penelo watched a muscle in his cheek pulse as he pursed his lips and clamped his jaws together.

'This would be laughable if it was not so blasted inconvenient.' He muttered darkly. Penelo, confused, shifted closer to him and placed her hand against his chest. She noted to her surprise that his heart was beating quite fast and he was tense under her palm.

'What's wrong, Balthier, are you in pain?'

He laughed derisively at that and then winced at the movement, 'Only in an existential way,' he muttered blackly and then turned his hot gaze back to her, 'I am holding you entirely responsible for all this. You simply would not go away.'

'I….what?' Penelo recoiled slightly more in utter confusion than hurt.

'A distraction is not a distraction if one spends all bloody day thinking about it; then it becomes a damned obsession.' Balthier continued as if he'd forgotten she was there and was instead berating himself out loud.

'I almost had myself convinced that you were nothing more than a sweet little diversion, an indulgence of some misguided romantic leanings I had yet to rid myself of completely.'

He laughed harshly and the sound scolded Penelo's ears. Balthier was often mocking or self-deprecating but now he sounded truly angry with himself, 'I told myself that I kept you with me simply because I enjoyed you carnally. I had myself convinced, and probably you as well, that I kept you as nothing more than a sop to my ego; a fawning young thing to flatter my masculinity with.'

Penelo drew a sharp breath but could think of nothing to say. This was nothing she had not heard before from him in some variation or else feared inside the privacy of her own thoughts, but strangely something about the way he told her these horrible things blunted the force of them. He made it sound as if they were merely lies, poor lies at that, and if they were lies then that would mean……..

'You realise of course that I had all this planned, hmm?'

Balthier interrupted her feverish thoughts speaking with clipped impatience, 'Not the part involving being mortally wounded in a mine explosion, of course,' he added distractedly, 'but everything else. It was all part of a quite beautifully complex plan.' He fixed her with an almost accusing look, eyes dark and chaotic, 'A plan that was always going to end with my incarceration at Lord Larsa's pleasure.'

Penelo felt all the blood leave her head at once and congeal like ice around her heart, 'You….you want to go to prison? You planned this?'

Balthier shrugged indifferently, 'Popularity is its own curse; I am too tightly linked as an ally to both Larsa and Ashe. I have become a pariah and a target among other sky pirates. The only way to avoid being killed by my compatriots for the heinous crime of being far too noble was to ensure that my reputation for nobility was completely destroyed.'

Penelo's mouth formed a perfect 'o' of surprise before she managed to find words to speak, 'And stealing from Larsa and being accused of sabotaging the Bervenia mine would do that; no one would believe you were friends with Larsa and Ashe after that.' She whispered.

Balthier turned away, 'Quite,' he said bitingly, 'Of course, I also intended to steal a large amount of the Bervenia magicite to buy off my dear comrades of the sky, but a short sojourn in one of Archades better jails should work equally well. There is nothing like being convicted of a crime by a friend to cement ones reputation as a thoroughly disreputable scoundrel.'

Penelo swallowed twice reflexively as she tried to absorb all he'd told her. She found that she could not even begin to work out what she should feel about it all. 'But what does any of that have to do with me?' she finally asked, at a dead loss.

Balthier still would not look at her, but she watched his mouth move, lips almost bloodless as he pursed them and his jaw hard as stone.

'Nothing,' and his voice didn't sound like him at all; there was none of his usual musical disdain, 'Not a damnable thing, and therein lies the rub. You should not have had any ability to affect my decisions whatsoever.'

Penelo held her breath, her heart hammering in her chest as Balthier finally deigned to look at her.

'In the mine, Avenlieu's idiot son accosted me as I was disarming his bombs. The fool was as inept in ambush as he was sabotage and I had his measure soon enough.'

His expression darkened and he continued voice becoming reflective as his gaze closed in on itself.

'I could have convinced him to sell me all the magicite in that mine, for the price of his miserable life. He and I could have been out of that blasted place before it went up in smoke except for the fact that I kept seeing your face in my mind's eye. The sensible thing to do would have been to either shoot the fool Avenlieu or make a deal and scarper. Except that you would not like that and so I did not do it.'

He shook his head disgusted with himself and closed his eyes on a deep sigh, 'I did not do it because you would not like it and suddenly what you wanted was more important than my own commonsense. That is when I finally realised.'

Penelo, hanging on his every word, barely reacted as she felt one hot tear streak down her cheek. Her hands were clasped so tightly together as she knelt on the bed that the tips of her fingers tingled from loss of blood flow. 'What did you realise?' she whispered.

Balthier leaned his head back against the white wall of the Alexander medical bay behind the bed, but not before she saw the haunted and jaded look in his brown eyes.

'Isn't it obvious, sweetheart?' he asked her tiredly, the crooked smile playing over his lips still warm despite its bitterness, 'I realised that I love you, truly love you…..and it is all so bloody stupid because very soon I shall be convicted and sent away for a very long time and I love you far too much to ask you to wait for me.'

He opened his eyes then and looked at her as Penelo gasped involuntarily at his words. She did not know if he had ever come close to telling her he loved her before, she honestly could not remember, but she doubted that had he said it he had ever meant it until this moment.

'Oh……oh……' Penelo could not make herself string together words. Distantly she thought that she should feel elation, triumph even, that she had finally proved that she was not deluded or ridiculous in loving him, that he loved her as much as she loved him after all, but instead she just felt helpless and confused. It was all such a horrible mess.

Balthier was watching her and his expression was dryly amused, his brown eyes warm but vaguely bitter, 'Hmm, yes, I know. Isn't love grand?'


	20. Chapter 20

_The only true fools are those who never question and the only wise souls are those who truly do not know the answers._

A year is a very long time. This reflection came to Penelo as she examined a delicate and highly intricate glass sculpture of a potted orange tree, complete with lighted crystal bulbs in the shape of the round fruits hanging from the perfectly symmetrical branches of the artificial tree.

Time was the strangest thing; it moved too fast, too slowly and not at all and then you blinked and wondered how it all happened and why it was that nothing ever seemed the same in memory as it did when it happened.

Penelo, who had experienced more seminal moments in her short life than was strictly her fair share, was still surprised by how her life continued to change, to evolve. The oddest thing about it was, deep down, she did not think she had changed all that much in that time, it was the world around her that changed. She was still the scared, naïve girl that Ba'gamnan kidnapped as bait for a mercurial and impulsive sky pirate.

It was funny to think that all that had happened almost six years ago now.

Moving away from the strange light fixture in the Imperial private audience chamber Penelo drifted towards the glass doors leading out to the balcony. It was the height of the Archadian summer, never as hot as the coldest day in Rabanastre, but still pleasant. The blue sky stretching out beyond the balcony was vividly exuberantly blue and the white clouds drifting across that flawless canvas were cheerfully fluffy.

Walking out onto the balcony Penelo wrapped her hands around the railing and turned her face up to the sky, taking a deep breath of the crisp air. It was an absolutely gorgeous day and up here, high above the greenery swathed red stone towers of Tsenoble and the Imperial centre of the Empire, Penelo could indulge a simple love for simple pleasures without worry.

After a moment of silent communion with the sky she looked down at her hands, observing with a certain detachment the rings adorning her fingers; silver and gold bands, some sparkling with emerald or topaz and some unadorned. She didn't really like them, she had never really liked rings as they tended to make her fingers itch, but in a strange way she had become accustomed to wearing them much like a costume.

She had become pretty used to wearing costumes too.

_Tomaj's Travelling Musical Revue featuring Penelo the Starlet of the Skies _had been travelling, putting on shows all over Ivalice, for the last year give or take, and Penelo, the leading lady of all their exclusive shows, was expected to look a certain way and behave in a certain way every moment of the day. It seemed like there was not a town in Ivalice wherein someone had not heard of her. It was very, very strange.

It was also the last thing she had ever really wanted. Penelo lived to dance, and she enjoyed singing although she really did not think she was very good, despite what all the people said to the contrary, but she had never wanted fame. She really didn't know what to do with it.

Penelo's eyes fixed on the decorative band around her wrist, a simple slender bracelet of silver plated with pink and blue and green and yellow stones. This bracelet was the only piece of jewellery she liked, it matched her tattoos and it matched……well, she smiled ruefully, that didn't really need saying, did it?

These extravagantly garish colours belonged to only one man, a man with enough personal charisma to make it work. Penelo sometimes wondered what it said about her that she wore _his_ colours.

She remembered how, when he'd been convicted of innumerate counts of piracy and high treason and sentenced to execution via beheading before the Senate Court here in this very city, Balthier had been required to remove all his jewellery. She remembered it all as if it was yesterday, how he'd smirked and winked at her and even pale and wane from weeks incarcerated in the Imperial dungeons he had been the most captivating man she had ever seen.

Penelo remembered how pitch perfect his theatrics had been as he'd made such a performance out of removing each and every one of his ear-rings that no one gathered to see the infamous pirate sentenced to his richly deserved doom could tear their eyes away from him.

Even now, a year after he had been led out of her life in chains, she remembered the deft grace of his clever hands as he deposited his jewellery into the hands of his guards. She also remembered the outrage in the Senate court chambers when Balthier had glanced up at the Senator in Chief and Judge Magister Zaagabaath and said, voice clear as a bell in the huge chamber:

'Be sure to keep my affects safe, would you? I shall be wanting those back soon enough.'

Even with the pronouncement of his death sentence still ringing silently in Penelo's ears he had been laughing at them all, taunting the most influential law-makers in Archadia with the promise that he would be long gone before the headsman could so much as sharpen his axe.

As they led him out, those metal clad judges who had left such a scar on Penelo's life, and she supposed Balthier's as well as once upon a time he had worn the armour too, she had followed, helplessly. Drifting in his wake from the spectators' gallery to watch as the condemned man was paraded through the streets of the Imperial Capital.

In the months since his arraignment people had said that Penelo was the greatest performer that ever lived, but those people had obviously never seen Balthier at his best.

What should have been a solemn march of a man condemned to death being escorted to a distant outpost in the north of the Empire, to await the long months before his death sentence was carried out in solitude, became instead the triumphant procession of a radiant and unrepentant king of all he surveyed. That Balthier had no throne and had thrown away his freedom was forgotten: his spirit was undiminished.

Penelo who was only partially in the present, high above the city, looked down over the railings of the Imperial palace and into the distant maze of streets far below, remembering the day she had run alongside the procession of the Prodigal Son, as the ardents, the vulgars and the gentry came together to watch and cheer.

It hadn't mattered if they had loved him or wanted him dead, all that had mattered was, on that day, despite a bitter rain and a heavy sky, Balthier had commanded the rapt attention of the very heart of the Empire.

And he had loved every moment of it.

The dizzying view of the Archadian metropolis below her fractured into shards of watery light as Penelo's heart clenched in visceral memory and her eyes were blinded with her own tears. The ever present sharp breeze of Tchita wrapped about her bare shoulders, stroking over her ink twinned forearms reminiscent of a certain impatient embrace she had not felt in far too long.

'Dance for me darling, when the day comes. I'll be watching for you.'

His last words to her, a snatched moment as the harassed and angry Judges and hoplites had manhandled him into the windowless barred Chocobo carriage that would spirit him away from the eyes of Ivalice.

_Dance for me darling……._and his lips, warm and fleeting against her forehead, more a gesture of release or benediction than a kiss. She remembered how her fingers had hooked reflexively in the soft, pettable cotton of his vibrant white shirt (drenched in the rain and sticking to his body though it was) trying to hold him with her as the Judge guards had yanked on his shackles and hauled him backwards towards the waiting cage that would take him far, far away from her, maybe forever.

'Don't leave me,' and it was a childish, silly thing to say; as if she had ever really held him to her to begin with.

He was the wind; he was a shooting star that screamed across the sky, changing all those he met but being changed by none. He was untouchable and inexplicable and, at that moment, even though she did not think she had ever felt any pain so exquisite or maddening as watching him dragged off to his eventual death, she realised that he was the most perfect thing that had ever happened to her.

One of the guards had torn her away from him then, holding her back as he was shoved and pushed and almost thrown into the barred and windowless moving prison that would steal him away.

At the last moment she had twisted in the grip of the guard that held her and rammed the flat of her palm into the soft, unprotected part of the Judge's throat where the underside of the helmet and the shoulder plates of his armour did not quite meet and had managed to break away, Balthier had also shaken loose of his own guards and leaned out of the cage before the door banged closed.

For a frozen second their eyes met.

For one transient moment in time it was as if the rest of Ivalice ceased to be and Penelo had been stricken immobile as if by a spell. In that moment Balthier had smiled at her crookedly, his dark eyes hooded and secretive even then. As she had watched he had raised one hand bare of rings or bracelets, and used one long finger to mime a cross over his heart. Eyes glittering with an almost mocking humour he had raised that hand to his lips and almost nonchalantly flicked the kiss towards her, his wicked lips had mouthed the words:

'_Cross my heart and hope to die….'_

Then the door of his moving cage had slammed closed and the Judge guards had screamed orders to the driver and the Chocobos had lurched forward under the whip. Penelo, standing in the rain and drenched to her skin, had simply stood there and watched him go.

_Dance for me darling, when the day comes. _

'Penelo – forgive me for keeping you waiting, I must apologise for my tardiness.'

Jerked out of memory Penelo whipped around, heart in her throat as the Emperor of Archadia, Larsa Ferrinas Solidor, strode into own audience chamber, resplendent in red velvet and black silk. His smile for her was as guileless and gentle as the look of pleasure in his sky blue eyes as he took in her appearance.

'Don't be silly, Larsa, I should be thanking you for seeing me. I'm sorry I didn't make a proper appointment,' Penelo hurried back into the room, as always feeling nervous about how she should speak with Larsa. He was not her Emperor after all, but he had such an heir of benign kingliness to him that she felt that she should bow or curtsy just to be polite.

'Please Penelo, you need no appointment to see me; it is always my joy to see you.' Larsa stepped forward to close the gap between them as Penelo dithered awkwardly in the centre of the lavish but tastefully refined chamber, unsure what to say or do.

Larsa was only eighteen years old, but that was hard to remember when one looked at the handsome, charming, personable and refined young man who had such an aura of confidence and subtle power about him that he had become.

Certainly he had come along way from the soft voiced twelve year old that Penelo had first met in Bhujerba…..or maybe he hadn't, Penelo pondered as he swept her a courtly Archadian bow and with utmost reverence took up her hand in both of his. When Penelo looked into those deep, faultless blue eyes, she still saw the honest, moral, courageous boy who had treated her as an equal and given her his word of safety all those years ago in the sky city.

Penelo tried to think of something to say to him as her throat went dry. She was acutely aware of the feel of Larsa's hands cupping her one limp and clammy hand. Standing before the Emperor she felt foolish indeed in her gaudily coloured dancer's silks. The look in his eyes made her heart thud in her chest. She felt like she could see right through those pure blue orbs, so full of light, so free of secrets.

Perhaps sensing her nervousness, or maybe simply courteous to a fault Larsa released her hand and gestured for her to take a seat on one of the gold and cream damask chaise-longue arranged artfully in the corner of the room near the doors to the balcony.

'Come, please, let us sit.'

Almost gratefully Penelo concentrated on trying to sit demurely across from Larsa as a servant appeared from nowhere to present the Emperor and his 'special guest' with a plate of candied fruits and an iced glass of rich fruit cordial. Larsa dismissed the servant with a gracious smile and a firm insistence that he was quite old enough now to pour his own drinks and eat without assistance, thank you. Penelo simply sat mute and tried to control her racing heart.

Larsa turned to her almost before the servant had departed, 'I know why you are here, Penelo, you do not need to look quite so nervous,' his gentle smile faded almost immediately and he looked momentarily young and forlorn, 'I do not like this anymore than you, I think, but my hands are tied.'

'I know.' Penelo could feel tears prickling her eyes once again, tears of frustration and anger. 'And I am sorry Larsa; this is so terribly unfair on you. I am so sorry!'

To her surprise Larsa laughed then, a bright and free burble of sound, as pleasant and unexpected as sudden birdsong.

'Oh, Penelo I am not a boy, this is the way of things.'

He shook his head, 'I was terribly foolish to give that Gil to Al-Cid, had I but thought I would have realised my error, but I was so determined to assert my own independence and support a friend.' He shook his head ruefully, 'I have learned my lesson from such folly.'

Penelo bit her lip, 'It is not wrong to wish to help a friend, Larsa.' Her hand hovered like a trapped bird, as she halted the instinctive act of reaching across the mosaic lacquered table to lay her hand upon his sleeve in comfort.

Larsa's eyes met hers, blue meeting blue and his gaze was so forthright, the gratitude and understanding so complete, that Penelo truly hated herself for the fact that all she could think of was that she wished she was looking into a pair of hooded, opaque dark eyes that gave her nothing and shared even less of the soul within.

Larsa reached out and closed his own hand over hers, where it trembled caught in the no man's land of indecision. Penelo closed her eyes and held her breath, the slightest soft whisper of silk and velvet over brocade the only indication that Larsa had moved forward.

_Dance for me darling, when the day comes._

After a painful moment Larsa drew away and Penelo felt her eyes pop open as he let go of her. Once more she looked into still and gentle gentian pools of blue. Larsa smiled sadly.

'You are going to perform, are you not? Just as he asked you to do.'

Swallowing hard Penelo nodded, 'Tomaj says the tickets are all sold out, he has even made arrangements to put on Chocobo carriages so that people can reach the town to see the show.' She shook her head helplessly, 'I'm sorry Larsa.'

Larsa settled back in his chair a little more and clasped his hands together, 'I don't blame you. It is as well that it happens this way; I have no will to execute him.'

He fixed her with a quizzical look as Penelo struggled to meet his eyes, 'You know that he will find some way to use your performance to affect his escape, don't you?'

And the question was so kind, so gentle, as if it was not his authority and his laws that Balthier intended to flagrantly flaunt and abuse and to do so by using Penelo as his distraction. Miserably Penelo nodded.

'I know it,' she whispered and in her mind she saw again those wicked eyes and heard those silky words: _Dance for me darling when the day comes, I will be watching for you. _

Larsa still watched her with clear and lucent eyes, 'I will do what I can but there will be so many people,' he shook his head with a mixture of frustration and sadness, 'I am not sure that I can prevent some blame being placed upon you and Tomaj. You will almost certainly be implicated in his escape in the minds of the general populace, though I shall ensure you will never be charged.'

Penelo felt one tear roll down her cheek and she scrubbed it away viciously, 'You shouldn't, for I will be guilty.'

Larsa smiled sadly so much too old in his soul for his years, 'We are all guilty of something Penelo.'

She shook her head angrily; she was angry because for just a moment she could imagine a deeper voice, richer and filled with a smooth self-derision, saying those words. Those were not words blue eyed and pure Larsa should say.

'Not you, you are good.'

She told him fiercely trying to force an understanding through those shining eyes of his to his fine soul; she did not know what she wanted him to understand because she did not truly understand it herself. Perhaps all she wanted him to know was that if she could, she would have liked to be in love with him.

Larsa broke eye contact and stared down at his own clasped hands, swathed in black gloves.

'Yes,' he murmured and his voice was still lyrically pleasant and devoid of the dark undercurrents of secret schemes that Penelo's ears long to detect, 'Perhaps that is my bane; perhaps if I was less good, as you say, you would love me instead of _him_.'

Penelo sucked in her breath, a thousand rebuttals dying on her tongue before her mind had even fully formed them. Larsa rose smoothly from his chair and nodded cordially to her, his smile bittersweet.

'I will release the declaration granting your troupe permission to perform on the night before Ffamran Mid Bunansa's scheduled execution, and I will privately ensure that Balthier is able to affect whatever escape plan he has devised without too much resistance from the guard.'

Larsa walked stiffly towards the door leading to his private chambers and stopped, one gloved hand braced against the ash white wood frame of the door. He looked back at her, blue eyes bright with an honest pain.

'I will do all this, disregarding the laws of my own Empire and aiding and abetting a confessed criminal, because it is better to have the pirate alive so that he might serve the Empire in some manner in the future than to kill him, I know this politically, but I will admit to you Penelo that that is not the real reason.'

Staring into Larsa's true blue eyes Penelo nodded her head; she did not need to know what truly motivated him and she did not want to hear him say it. Still she did not think she had any choice, Larsa was risking much when he did not need too and if all he asked was for her to listen then she had no choice but to pay that price, even if it was not her price to pay.

Larsa watched her with brilliant cobalt eyes, 'One day Penelo, when you have freed him, you will find that light does not need darkness, that you do not need him anywhere near as much as he needs you.' For a moment Larsa's gaze faltered and then hardened like diamond, 'That is the day I long for, because I too know what love is and there is nothing of any good about it.'

* * *

_A/N: author note to Jin, who sent me a lovely review for chapter ten without signing in so I could not reply directly. If you should read this chapter, Jin, thank you for the kind words – Spikey44_

_And to everyone else, I hope you liked Larsa's cameo. I think I promised he'd make an appearance to some of you: please let me know what you think ;)_


	21. Chapter 21

_Sometimes the mark of a great performer is knowing when it is time to end the performance and stop playing._

A year was really a very short time, Balthier mused absently, stifling a yawn. Years winked by so quickly that, if one was not careful, one could find oneself a year older with little to show for it but the promise of encroaching senility.

With a sigh Balthier dog-eared the page in the book he'd been reading (a bad habit, but he was always losing bookmarks) and shifted on his surprisingly spacious and wide prison bed to look through the narrow barred window of his cell. It was a charming, picturesque summer's day beyond the window, a pleasant breeze twisting through the bars.

Clasping his hands over his stomach Balthier looked up meditatively at the ceiling of his 'temporary enforced residence' and tracked the progression of the crack in the plaster with his eyes. He fancied that that unsightly crack had lengthened by another inch in the last week alone. He smiled faintly, perhaps he would not have to exert himself to make a daring escape after all, perhaps all he needed to do was wait for the roof to cave in and climb out of the hole?

Truth be told he wasn't really in the mood for affecting much of a daring escape. Oh, he'd be long gone before the Axeman arrived come the dawn, but he was disinclined to provide his usual flair and theatrics along the way; sometimes even hardened players did not feel like following the same old script. Balthier had already begun improvising a new riff on the familiar theme of his life's performance, after all.

Still he had not imagined, when he decided that prison was the answer to his multitude of problems a year ago, that he would find imprisonment quite so……relaxing.

All in all his year's worth of incarceration really hadn't been a hardship in the slightest; honestly he'd appreciated the change of pace. Stretching his spine slightly and raising his arms above his head as he yawned, Balthier considered what he would do with himself next to while away another handful of hours.

Admittedly his choices were somewhat limited.

Dalbraith, his favourite guard, was currently away from his duties enjoying a much deserved respite with wife and family (Balthier was not sure but he thought the man had said something about his eldest son's wedding?) and the other guards, while very much under his thumb, were not much good for conversation.

(Also unless something had gone quite drastically wrong, Balthier suspected that the absence of most of the other guards probably meant they were already under the influence of Fran's Sleep spell by now; it was fast approaching the agreed upon time that his partner would come for him after all).

Still, as Balthier well knew, prison breaks were delicate things and Fran was nothing if not meticulous, therefore he imagined he had a good few hours before he could expect any actual rescue. Therefore he needed to find something to do in the interim. He picked up the book of prayers on his nightstand absently, but put it back down without opening the covers. He didn't feel like mocking religion at the moment and the book had developed unfortunate connotations for him, in any regards.

It was a shame about the Kiltia; he'd rather enjoyed the intellectual diversion of arguing the finer points of theology with that charming priestess, Valdenna, the one who had given him the prayer book in a misguided attempt to save his soul.

Balthier smiled at the memory faintly. He and the priestess had whiled away many energising hours bickering and debating the validity of belief and the complexities of religion long into the night more than once (Balthier made no excuses, he was staved for good conversation and they _would_ keep foisting _priests_ off on him).

It was truly unfortunate, however, that his cynicism had proved more devout than Valdenna's devotion. It had been exceedingly awkward to discover that, in the pursuit of nothing more than spirited debate, he had unwittingly robbed Valdenna of her faith. It had been even more uncomfortable when the woman asked him to help her 'divest herself' of her celibacy as well.

Seven months into his incarceration and he had been sorely tempted to acquiesce to her earnest request, and even now he was a tad bemused by his own polite (regretful) refusal. After all he'd never had a priestess before. The possibility (fact -but he wasn't ready to admit that) that he had refused Valdenna out of loyalty to Penelo was strange indeed. He had never so much as considered sexual fidelity before.

Bored of both his present and retrospection Balthier rolled off his bed and walked over to the clay wheel set up in the corner of the room. Over the last several months, and after forming a rapport with his guards out here in the Archadian far north, he had amassed quite a number of accoutrements for his leisure that most men condemned to death by the state did not generally enjoy.

His art apparatus filled much of the available space in his prison room (which resembled an artist's studio far more than a cell by now). He had two easels and a large collection of canvases, plenty of clay for the sculpting he had decided to take up now he had an abundance of time on his hands and a very nice selection of inks, quills, paints and clay dyes.

It was profoundly strange and not something Balthier would ever admit to even under torture, but locked up, his liberty stripped from him, Balthier was the closest he had ever been to content.

It was _nice_ to live within limits for a change. Instead of feeling the need to push against ever decreasing barriers to his own wants and growing increasingly despondent with the realisation that, with each boundary surpassed, he ran the ever increasing risk of running out of things to want long before he found anything capable of stopping him. In the hours of quiet reflection he had experienced out here in the solitude of his own private prison, he was forced to concede that living for purely selfish and transient desire could become deeply wearing after awhile.

Pulling out the stool by the clay stand Balthier rolled up his sleeves and dipped his fingers into the waiting porcelain bowl of water and considered the bust he was making out of the mound of greyish brown clay. Fran's ears were giving him trouble; too tall and heavy for the rest of the head to support. Still, his artistic integrity refused to allow him to make those long, slender ears any shorter simply in response to his own technical inadequacies.

In silence, alone with his own thoughts - which swiftly turned to nothing more than concentration as his deft fingers moulded and sculpted clay into a simulacrum of his dear partner's visage, Balthier toiled away on something unobserved and without the need to perform to anyone else's expectation as the hours passed unnoticed.

And for the first time in many years, the man who called himself Balthier was genuinely happy.

Therefore it was with some trepidation that he greeted the face of Nono as the little Moogle peered at him from the other side of the barred window of his room. Balthier did not wonder how the Moogle managed to be high enough in the air (some hundred feet at least) to press it's snug nosed furred face against the bars and instead he realised with a certain reluctance that it was time to escape already.

As he rose from the stool and walked over to the window, wiping his clay smeared hands on a cloth, Balthier glanced back, almost mournfully at the half finished bust and the numerous paintings, in various stages of completion, he had been working on. Images of his guards and his guards families; these last few months had allowed him unparalleled opportunity to improve his portraiture skills.

'Nono, good day to you,' he murmured as he approached and began to remove the bars from the window (he had long since scratched away at the limestone casement of the window keeping the bars affixed and, in fact, had had to keep the bars held in place with clay to stop them falling out in a stiff breeze.)

'Master Balthier – we have come to retrieve you,' Nono told him proudly and Balthier smirked. Retrieve, hmm? Well it was accurate he supposed. Still he had to admit he was not as enthused over the prospect of returning to his old existence as he might have hoped.

With the window free Balthier pulled Nono into his cell and peered out, leaning out and turning around so he could look up at the conical roof of his tower prison.

'Fran, delightful to see you as ever,' he smiled dryly up at his partner who crouched on top of the tiled roof, hover cycle and grappling ropes arrayed around her poised form. 'How has the last year treated you?'

She quirked an eyebrow, 'Well enough, though not so well as you have fared I'll wager.' The tiniest flicker of smile graced her lips, 'You look well indeed.'

He chuckled as he manoeuvred himself up onto the window ledge, gripped the guttering with his hands and pulled himself up onto the lip of the roof alongside Fran, 'Ah, there is nothing so good for the constitution of a man than a sojourn in pleasant imprisonment, Fran. I must confess to feeling quite rejuvenated all things considered.'

He looked up at the late afternoon sunlight, the pinking clouds and the darkening sky. He leaned back against the roof on his elbows and raised one knee, letting the other leg dangle over the rooftop. He sighed contentedly.

'You do not ask after her?'

Fran asked him dryly as she handed over the collection of shiny baubles that were his rings, his ear-rings and his bracelets; smiling wolfishly Balthier set about sliding the rings onto his fingers and the bracelet over his wrist. The ear-rings would have to wait; he would need the holes reopened in his ears first.

'I have no need,' he did not bother with coyness, or feigned ignorance.

'Indeed?' Fran queried.

He nodded looking at the sky, 'You gave Tomaj the fifty thousand Gil investment for his and Penelo's little venture, did you not?'

She nodded, 'As you requested,' her right ear twitched slightly a sure sign that she was thinking something mischievous, 'The hume was most grateful.' Was all she said however. Balthier chuckled.

'Was he indeed?' he arched a brow, 'Still I suspect that gratitude extends to you alone. He was rather partial to you during that Lemures fiasco if I remember correctly.'

Fran shrugged gracefully and he knew that was all he would get from her, she was not the sort of woman to kiss and tell, after all.

'He and Penelo have been most successful, her fame may well outstrip your own.' Fran arched a brow of her own watching him sideways with surprisingly open curiosity. His smile broadened.

'Oh, I don't doubt it. I have always had a keen eye for a good investment.'

'None of which answers the question I posed to you,' Fran pointed out a little tartly reiterating her question. 'Why do you not ask of her?' He smiled wryly.

'Do you know, a man can really gain a sense of perspective while languishing under a death sentence,' he began easily as he bounced one foot on the shingles and watched the sky meditatively. Fran grew still beside him (not that she was ever known for fidgeting) and he heard her take just the slightest audible breath, testing his scent on the tip of her tongue.

'You are……happy?' it was a question, they both knew happiness was not something he was well accustomed to; it was far too passive an emotion for him. Still he realised that he _was_ happy and that he rather enjoyed the simplicity of the sensation.

'Hmm, I think I am.' He glanced over at Fran, 'Does that answer your question?'

Fran regarded him seriously tilting her head to the side as the sun backlit her hair turning the pale, gossamer fine threads into white gold. 'You are happy, this I can tell, new to you this feeling I know, but I do not see what the feeling has to do with Penelo.'

'Oh absolutely nothing, beyond that I am happy and so refuse to allow any cares to disturb that tranquillity.'

Fran studied him, 'Do you fear that she will not come, or do you fear that she will?'

Balthier sighed, 'You are determined to ruin my mood, are you not?' he sat up on the roof. 'Be a dear Fran and help gather my belongings, I would hate for my portraiture to be destroyed during our pre-arranged and characteristic daring prison break.'

He slithered over to the edge of the roof and dropped down onto the window ledge, folding his body back into the window (his surprisingly hospitable guards had allowed him to maintain his fairly gruelling personal fitness regimen while incarcerated, which was just as well as he didn't fancy attempting what he and Fran had planned for tonight had he not maintained his physique).

Fran followed him easily back into the cell and looked about her at his living quarters and her expression flickered when she noticed the clay bust. Balthier winced.

'I know,' he sighed, aggrieved, 'the ears are all wrong.'

Fran walked over to examine some of the half finished portraits and still life paintings stacked against the far wall.

'You are evading my questions once more.' She told him calmly. He waited until she turned to face him and smiled.

'I know. It is like flying an airship, old habits come flooding back no matter how long it has been.' He winked at her and Fran frowned with indulgent annoyance.

'Lord Larsa has granted permission for a performance of the 'Blue Chocobo' in the town square later this night.' Fran informed him in neutral tones watching him as she continued, 'She has honoured your request it would seem.'

'I didn't doubt she would,' Balthier admitted with the slightest of sighs, 'I had rather _hoped_ for the contrary but I do know the lady, Fran, Penelo is nothing if not loyal -much to her detriment it must be said.'

'And you do not like this?' Fran watched him with amusement as they both considered the canvasses and easels and the various accoutrements Balthier wished to take with him as he made his departure, and how best to remove them from the room. 'I had observed that hume men like their mates to flock to their side when they are in need, and you are oft times in need.'

Balthier scowled, 'Don't mock a condemned man, Fran, it is in bad taste.'

The rare sound of Fran's soft laughter was answer enough to that, a ticklish sound that brushed against his ears like the softest of cotton clouds. Despite himself he smiled faintly to hear it.

'I have been reliably informed that the 'Blue Chocobo' is one of the company's best plays; something of a grand spectacle, hmm?' He neatly evaded once again, their conversation like a dance wherein each partner knew their places and their steps.

'It is a most popular performance.' Fran conceded.

'Hmm, then we had best make sure this prison break does not overshadow such; it could affect sales and as I am financing the entire enterprise I do not want to jeopardise the performance.'

'Or diminish Penelo's time to shine bright upon her own stage?'

Balthier stopped in the process of lashing together a collection of his canvasses with sturdy rope, to glare at Fran. 'If I did not know better I would think that you were taking altogether too much interest and enjoyment out of my…..dalliance with our little songstress,' he quirked an eyebrow at his partner, 'It is very un-Viera of you.'

Fran's right ear twitched, a sign of amusement, 'I am Viera no longer and must take what meagre amusements as I find them.' She replied dryly in a manner of banter that she did not share with any other but him. He grinned and accepted defeat graciously.

'Very well Fran, I concede. You know that I have long felt that Penelo should have her time shine out of mine, or Vaan's, or anyone else's shadow; alas the damn girl seems to enjoy giving her light away.' He paused, 'Still I had rather thought that little lord Larsa would capitalise on my incarceration to attempt a wooing.'

'Indeed, you would hand your lover over to the Emperor who condemned you?'

'Come now Fran, what is a death sentence among allies?'

He chuckled warming to conversing with Fran again as he had not done in a year, priestess' of questionable faith were nothing compared to his dear Viera.

'In any regard I am something of an anarchist at heart, as you well know, and have always thought that the notion of the last in the Solidor line marrying an orphaned, foreign, uneducated dancing girl five years his senior was a rather appealing one; the look upon the faces of the senators and grand dames of Archades society would be priceless.'

'And if Penelo was to respond to the affections of another man you would be free of any responsibility of care and love towards her?'

Fran added, amusement threading through her dulcet tones. Balthier gave her a long look as above them Nono manoeuvred the Strahl above the roof in preparation for hoisting up Balthier's belongings using the grappling cords and paraphernalia Fran had left on the roof.

'Well yes, as it happens, but must you say it so? You make me sound like a damned jaded cad.' He muttered mulishly.

'Foolish hume,' she chided softly stepping towards him and stroking his cheek with her long fingered hand, 'You _are_ a jaded cad, Balthier.'

Fran eyes, exotic and amused, telegraphed her genuine and unadorned pleasure to be reunited with her mercurial and eccentric hume partner once more. Balthier chuckled and stepped back so that he could afford her a flourishing bow.

'Too true my dear Fran; now what say we make haste with this miraculous prison break, hmm?' His smirk grew slanted, 'There is a blue chocobo I have rather been wanting to see.'

* * *

_The true power of a legend is not the acts but the presentation. _

Exactly one hour and seventeen minutes later the first of the guards hand picked to preside over the incarceration of the infamous sky pirate Balthier woke up from his spell induced slumber to find himself tied at ankle and wrist with rope and lying in a field some five miles from the prison tower.

Sitting up groggily the guard, whose name was Michelmas, was just in time to see the Strahl swoop low over the immediate countryside, verdant with thick and heavy trees and rolling moorland.

As Michelmas watched, the Strahl altered its flight path to sweep low above the field, low enough that Michelmas had to resist the desire to duck in case the ship came into land on his head. The powerful combustion of the engines created an artificial wind that set the grasses of the moor into rippling motion.

Swinging in a low, lazy arc the Strahl pivoted in a wide circle, tilting down to the right so that Michelmas could actually look into the cockpit to see the grinning visage of the former prisoner Balthier at the controls. The man gave Michelmas a jaunty wave before the Strahl straightened in its trajectory and began to gain altitude.

Unable to move because of his bindings and still affected by the Sleep spell all Michelmas could do was watch as a flurry of white papers, like a miniature blizzard, fell from the open cargo hold of the Strahl before the airship streaked away with a roar of mist engine exhaust.

When Michelmas had regained his wits he reached out to one of the pieces of paper that had landed near his feet. He picked it up awkwardly in his bound hands. To add to his increasing befuddlement Michelmas realised that the piece of paper was a play-bill:

_Tomaj's Travelling Musical Revue featuring Penelo the starlet of the skies proudly invites you to attend the exclusive, one night only, performance of 'The Blue Chocobo.' _

Michelmas was just perusing the time of curtain opening (he had a fondness for musical theatre and had heard good things about this revue) when the tower that had been the private (and supposedly inescapable) prison of the legendary sky pirate Balthier exploded in a brilliant flare of released explosive and magicite energy.

Ghosting above the explosion hidden in the thick belt of cloud cover Balthier smiled as his fingers caressed the steering levers of the Strahl. Well, he reasoned mildly, some things, like a good prison break, had to be done right, didn't they?

Of course, Balthier thought as Fran programmed in their course heading, now that he had handled business as only he could, he had a play to attend.


	22. Chapter 22

_What is the sound of one hand clapping; a whisper in the wind or the greatest of applause? _

Penelo tasted blood; she had bitten too hard on her bottom lip in that last pirouette and now the tang of salty copper filled her mouth. Still she could not afford to stop, or slow down or even spare the thought to lick the blood from her lip. Her teeth were bared in something that was not, under any circumstances, a smile.

Her feet were absolutely killing her.

The music was reaching its crescendo but she could not hear it. The thunderous melody had become one with the uproarious pounding of her feet. The hammering of her heart and the straining of her ribs as her lungs sought more air, made her feel like she was burning alive. The hard boning of her girdle and corset made her vaguely sick and she rued the day she had let Tomaj talk her into this particular costume.

She did not think that real Chocobos had to worry about corset chafing.

Still she danced, deaf to the music that rose and fell and twisted through the electrified night air following her every move and gyration. She had become the music and surpassed it. She was motion and energy and nothing more than an extension of the musical notes that flowed in her veins.

Inside the high heeled boots with the metal spikes that made such a rhythmic noise as she stamped and twirled and glided over the stage, her feet were bleeding, her toes all but crushed. It was the same every night and the brilliant shine to her lucent blue eyes was not the fey light of bewitching wonderment that many critics had described but instead it was the glimmer of tears she would not let fall.

Penelo often wondered why exactly she had ever thought being a dancer would be a fun vocation. Sometimes she really did think the battle of the Bahamut had been less an ordeal. (But then she had spent most of it too scared to think, so possible it was her memory at fault?)

Her dancing partner, the winged Arturo (as he liked to be called) grabbed her by the waist and lifted her bodily over his head as he pirouetted a handful of feet off the ground to the raucous cheers rising like a wave from the sea of shadows that formed the late night audience.

Penelo gritted her teeth and smiled through the dizzying series of steps, twists, and acrobatics that saw Penelo whipped about like a particularly limber rag-doll by Arturo. When she was finally set on her own two feet she wanted to scream with exhaustion. Instead she shimmied up to the edge of the stage to perform her final sashay.

The performance was drawing to a close and she still could not feel _him_ out there in that velveteen swathe of darkness beyond the stage lights.

Penelo hated this part more than any other part of the performance. It didn't even matter which show she was performing, or which silly costume she had squeezed herself into, she still hated this part the most. She hated the moment she was confronted with an audience that was not _him_.

Standing at the very precipice of the raised stage she was blinded by the spot lights and dazzled by the searing rays of artificial light refracted and reflected from any number of strategically placed mirrors and coloured crystal lamps suspended from the rafters above the stage. The whole effect created a kaleidoscopic rainbow that burned her eyes and made her head spin.

Penelo could not see her audience at all and that was one thing she was savagely grateful for. She did not want to see those shadowed faces; the wet gleam of hundreds of eyes turned up to her like the eyes of Marlboros feasting on her pale flushed skin and corset contorted figure. She did not want to feel the heat of those eyes on her from the shadows beneath the stage. It was a dead heat; empty and devoid of the secret laughing mockery of the only eyes whom she had ever relished feeling upon her.

He said that he would be watching when the time came…….he asked for this dance! Where was he?

As the music she could not hear but could sense like the trip of her own pulse shifted into the final cords of the performance Penelo began to sway. Her hips swung like a graceful pendulum as she raised her arms above her head and tilted her chin up towards the burning cold and false light of the stage lamps above.

Her false plume of dyed blue Chocobo feathers quivered from the back of her costume as she twitched her body just so. Very slowly, with agonising foot shuffles that looked nothing but inviting to the rapt audience, Penelo began to pivot, turning on the spot.

Lacing her fingers together above her head she concentrated on her performance; concentrated on every sensation and movement of her tired, burning muscles. Her spine slithered, her thighs quivered, her feet remained almost still and her knees locked. Her hips swayed with an artful, lazy abandon and her torso followed suit. The false Chocobo tail that was such an ordeal to dance with but which Tomaj said really made the outfit, reacted as if it was part of her body. The subtle vibrations of those soft plumes captivated her audience as much as the taut play of toned muscle down her bare legs left many a male mouth in the audience watering.

Penelo was in her element; resplendent in her almost thoughtless, unintended sensuality. Yet for all the power she had in that moment as the object of so much fascinated lust she felt only hollow. She did not want empty adoration; she did not want the negligent power of momentary infatuation. She wanted one single pair of eyes in warm shadow and a smile as sharp as a rapier in the dead of night.

The tempo picked up; the finale was upon her and Penelo's thoughts were already turning to fantasies of warm baths and potions for battered feet. She began to twist, faster and faster on the spot. She swirled in her feathers and her lace and her tight fitted bodice. The deft flick of her hand, so practiced it now looked like divine accident, released her hair to spin out around her like the golden tail of a comic as she moved.

Arcing up on the point of one foot, ignoring the excruciating grind on her brutalised toes, Penelo raised the other leg up over her head and hooked one arm around it as she spun. Her body contorted into a blind swirl and she was poetry in motion; sex and innocence, lust and untouched serenity mixed into one fast moving and impossibly graceful arc.

Every man, woman, and child in the audience lost their breath to watch her dance.

All save one, that is, who hid his amused and indulgent appreciation behind a smirk as, sensing the denouement rapidly approaching, he slipped from his perch in the deepest shadows high above the stage. The man sauntered, balanced as easily as a Couerl, across the rafters above the stage. He slipped down the ladder behind the stage's back curtain and slipped into the innards of the small backstage area beyond.

The sky pirate was rather pleased with himself. He had told her he would be watching and he knew that she had been watching for him. For all that however he was confident that she had never even sensed him so close to her the whole time, watching from above.

Balthier chuckled as he let himself into her private dressing room; he did so enjoy these games and Penelo was by far his favourite playmate.

* * *

_Blinded by the light and gilded in shadow; there is warmth in uncertainty and safety in unanswered questions._

Penelo opened her eyes wide as she broke from her impossible pirouette in a cloud of vibrant blue feathers and whipping spun gold hair. Her lungs burned and her limbs screamed with raging exhaustion as she dropped, almost violently, into a leg split at the edge of the stage. Her arms stayed delicately upraised and hands clasped still above her head, but her expression was sharp; for just a moment she had felt him. She knew she had. He was here!

Almost distracted Penelo realised that the music had crashed to its end; the show was over.

The crowd went wild, rising up from their seats in the balconies and the cheap seats like a wave; the applause a tremendous roaring beast that made Penelo flinch. She could not hear the sound of clapping only the monstrous pounding of hundreds of thick palms smacking against each other and the rupturing pops of the disturbed and sundered air. Whistles as sharp and harsh as the snarls of Worgans serrated through her mind.

She could not wait to run from the stage.

When the curtain came down for the final time, the audience still baying for more, Penelo accepted the hands that helped her to her feet and the assistance of the other members of the dancing troupe who helped her limp off the stage. Her shoes were filled with blood; she could hear the wet squish as she moved through the dark, close and musty smelling corridors of the backstage area headed for her dressing room.

Tomaj waylaid her before she could reach her little hidey-hole and the hot bath she longed for. He was grinning broadly in the way he only ever did after he had finished counting the night's take.

'Penelo, we did it! We beat our own record. We have never made so much Gil in one night before!'

Penelo somehow managed to feign a smile when what she really wanted to do was bludgeon Tomaj to death with the preposterous false Chocobo tail he insisted she wear, or failing that, summon a bolt of thundaga to send him flying through the wall. She did not care how much Gil they had made; she _never_ cared. All she wanted was to get out of this horrible costume and these monstrous shoes and never, ever dance again.

She had always been a girl for foolish dreams.

'I'm glad Tomaj, really.' She told him but her smile quickly became tremulous, 'Do you know if….?'

She would not let herself finish; better that she just imagine what it would be like if he really did uphold a promise rather than be confronted with a bitter reality. The self-satisfied smile fell from Tomaj's lips. He knew exactly what she would not let herself ask. He reached out to steady Penelo with one hand to her elbow and stroked her arm in comfort.

'My sources tell me the Strahl was spotted flying over the Hinterhills, and that there was some manner of explosion out there.' He quirked an eyebrow, 'An old fortress tower recently converted by the Judiciary for some unspecified purpose; there is not much left of it but rubble, all the guards garrisoned there were unharmed though.'

'I never doubted he'd escape.' Penelo whispered. After all if he hadn't Larsa probably would have just let him go.

Tomaj nodded, more interested in his gossip than her interruption. 'Rumour has it a Viera was spotted in the area, but none came through the doors of this theatre.'

Penelo nodded again; she had been looking for the tell-tale rise of slender ears all evening as well. Tomaj gave her a small, but genuine smile.

'Or at least no one _saw_ a wanted sky pirate and a Viera come through the doors. We both know that doesn't mean anything, however. Gods know _Vaan_ has managed to slip into every venue we have performed in without paying the door charge and if the apprentice can do it, then the master could probably walk right by us both in an empty corridor without our noticing.'

Penelo's smile died a wavering death upon her lips as she nodded once more. She would know, surely, had he been near, wouldn't she? It had been a year but she had rarely spent a day not feeling the keen bite of his absence.

Dance for me when the time comes, he had said. He had even promised to be watching but, if she had learned anything at all, it was that Balthier's greatest weapon was his words. He had promised to be watching but had not promised to be watching _her_.

'That's true,' She agreed eventually aware that Tomaj was only trying to make her feel better and it really was silly to be moping about when she knew it was too much to expect that _he _would keep his word. Tomaj watched her with compassionate eyes; he squeezed her arm once more before releasing her.

'Penelo he invested fifty thousand Gil into our business; I can't imagine he would do such a thing if he had no intention of coming back for you. Fifty thousand Gil is a great deal of Gil.'

'Yes,' Penelo agreed with him again, head nodding falsely and smile hurting her even as she held onto it with deathly determination.

Fifty thousand Gil was a great deal of Gil to anyone_ other_ than Balthier who played with wealth like he played with everything else. Gil was not a commodity Balthier held in high regard; it was merely an excuse for the games he liked to play. Penelo knew this and she feared that he had gifted to she and Tomaj such a large amount (far more than she had ever asked for) simply to make himself feel better for abandoning her.

A year was a long time, Penelo reasoned, and Balthier was notoriously fickle.

'Goodnight Tomaj,' She said with brave smile, glad that the owner of this small theatre in this tiny northern Archadian town had been gracious enough to let their troupe stay the night in the theatre instead of taking rooms in the town. She did not think, once she got out of these silly, horrible clothes, that she would be able to move again. The thought alone of being forced to walk into town from here made fresh tears prickle her eyelids.

'Goodnight Penelo, sweet dreams.'

Tomaj let her pass him with a sad smile. He watched her disappear into her dressing room and close the door. Once he was sure Penelo would not hear him Tomaj turned to the Viera who had been waiting, silent as a standing tree in an old grove, in the shadows further down the corridor.

'She doesn't think he wants her. She doesn't think he really meant that he would come back for her.'

'She knows him well and yet not at all. Or so it would seem.' Fran murmured in agreement, 'He will never do as she suspects so long as he has power to confound her expectations.'

Tomaj, who was a natural and somewhat irrepressible optimist, shrugged and turned his thoughts back to the vast sums of Gil this night's performance had raised. He also had no doubt that the return to liberty of his most significant financial backer would mean that their revenue would soon be going up even further. Tomaj smiled happily.

'Well, at least he's confounding her in a good way this time.' He looked back at the still and expectant Viera, 'Dear Fran would you like to retire to my room and help me count the Gil from tonight's performance again?'

The Viera smiled just a little; this hume had a good grasp of her likes, she would concede that point. 'Indeed, I would like that.'

The two retired into Tomaj's borrowed rooms in the backstage area of the theatre without further ado.

* * *

_Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies. These games we play, I and thou, are ours alone. _

Penelo slipped into her crowded dressing room and found before her eyes exactly what she had expected to find. A room filled almost to bursting with outlandish costumes and loose falling feathers in vibrant and unnatural hues, scattering the floor. There were bouquets of flowers from enraptured audience members and letters of adoration filling all available surfaces.

There was also, in its nook in a dark corner, her most unusual token of esteem. It was a mechanical songbird; all polished tin and agate eyes. The strange contraption was the work of one particularly ardent admirer of hers and it scared her a little. It was so eerily lifelike and yet so very far from living, but she had not the heart to refuse such an elaborate gift.

Tired almost to sickness Penelo dragged herself deeper into the cluttered, hot and tiny room.

The strange and slightly unsettling mechanical bird seemed to come alive as she hobbled past it, and oddly discordant musical notes filled the air as the bird's eyes sparked with inhume light from within and its metal beak opened on the first refrain of the leading musical number from the 'Blue Chocobo'.

Penelo stopped on her way to the bed and frowned at it; the contraption had to be wound up before it would sing and she did not think anyone had been in here to wind it.

Suspiciously she looked around the room, lit as it was by diffuse and softly glowing crystal lamps suspended above her head from wall sconces around the cluttered room. She could not see anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps Tomaj had wound it up thinking she would appreciate the out of tune warblings?

Dragging herself to the foot of the bed (unmade and covered in feathers like everything else in the cramped space) Penelo dropped like a stone onto the soft mattress. It was only as she fell backwards to lie flat that the rich chuckle reached her ears.

'Well now that was quite a sight, and here I was thinking you would not be able to sit, much less collapse supine, with that magnificent plumage of yours.'

Penelo blinked; had she had the energy, she would have sat bolt upright and strained every sense to locate the owner of that voice. She had not sensed his presence at all inside this tiny room. She struggled in ungainly fashion to raise herself up from the bed. She didn't get very far; her muscles were weak as water.

As it was he saved her the bother of rising by materialising from the soft shadows in the corner of the room to come and settle on the bed beside her, propping himself up on one elbow.

'How now sweetheart,' He smiled at her amused, 'It has been a while, has it not?'

'Balthier?' Her voice choked off. She did not dare believe. She rolled onto her side so she could see him as he reclined on the bed as casual as could be.

For a long moment all she could do was stare at him; his face a scant inch from hers, the soft warmth of his breath tickling over her sensitized and tired body. He smiled just faintly and she all but drowned in the warmth in those brown eyes. It did not seem possible to her that a whole year had passed. He did not look any different now than he had in her dreams when she had imagined this moment. She wondered, briefly, if perhaps she was dreaming now as well.

She stared and he watched her; those dark, hooded eyes reading her every thought, hope, and fear easily in her eyes. He shifted on the bed, making himself comfortable.

'I told you I would be watching, did I not?'

He murmured dryly reaching out behind her head with his free hand to tweak one of the long blue Chocobo feathers that formed part of her 'tail'. He smirked with amusement as he played with her costume.

'I must say, after witnessing that _rousing _performance, I am not sure I will ever look at a Chocobo in quite the same way again.'

'I did not see you. I did not _feel_ you there.'

Penelo was surprised to find that she was angry and did not quite know why. She found the courage to reach out to touch his sharp cheekbone. She had been so sure he would let her down again, that he would betray her, that now that he hadn't she felt quite contrary all of a sudden.

'Well, I was trying to keep a low profile,' he told her blandly quirking an expressive eyebrow, 'I am but hours from escaping prison after all, sweetheart. Even I have sense enough to know when it is prudent to keep my presence a secret.'

'Larsa won't pursue you, he told me so.'

'That is good to know,' Balthier murmured amusedly, 'Especially as I am not in the mood to run. Captivity has made me indolent, I would hazard to guess. I find myself growing quite partial to the thought of a life without the need for constant flight.'

Because he seemed so real and his voice was wrapping around her tired limbs like the kiss of black velvet Penelo closed her eyes with a heartfelt sigh and forced herself to close the gap between them so she could tuck her head under his chin. Balthier obliged her by drawing her in close within the circle of his arms. She felt the starch of crisp cotton and the butter smoothness of a patterned leather vest under her cheek.

'I missed you,' Penelo whispered. She did not want to think on what he had just said or allow herself any vain hopes. Balthier was flighty and he would soon long to escape whatever stable comfort he might find with her. She was certain of this. It was almost comforting to believe in his faults rather than dare hope he was serious. He always ran; it was what he did. Wasn't it?

'No doubt you have missed me,' Balthier chuckled richly, 'I am, after all, a very engaging fellow.'

For a short time they were silent and Penelo almost succumbed to sleep; the steady thump of his heart against her ear, so real and so solid and so seemingly faithful was hard to resist. Still she did not want to sleep; if she slept he might not be there when she woke. She roused herself with effort.

'Did you like it?' Penelo reached out to encircle his neck with her arms. Her eyelids felt weighted down and she had no want to move, not even to remove her hateful heels.

'Hmm?'

Balthier slid his free hand (the one not pinned under her body) down her side, fingers fanning out in a teasing flicker to just brush her hip. Penelo shivered and pressed closer as Balthier's clever fingers began exploring the lacings at the back of her corset.

'Did you like my dancing?' she asked him drowsily. Even if she was just dreaming that he was here and so warm and sweet she did not care; it was a good dream to have. Especially when his wicked chuckle reverberated through her body once more with the promise of a night spent doing anything _but_ sleeping.

'Ah, your _dancing_,' she could feel his dark smile against the sensitive skin of her neck and the heat of his breath tickling her earlobe. When he kissed her just behind her ear it was like ice and fire across her flesh. She felt it to the marrow of her bones and the centre of her being.

'I am not sure I possess the words to fully express my feelings regards your _dancing_. I would call you divine except I know for a fact that no divinity has _ever_ evoked such a reaction from me.' His teeth nipped lightly at her throat, 'Hmm, in fact there should be laws against that sort of self-expression. It is the sort of thing to lead good men astray and bad men to distraction. Though I confess, you look quite sumptuous in blue.'

He trawled liquid heat down the stem of her throat with each butterfly kiss as he fisted her hair to gently tilt her chin up to nuzzle underneath it. He rolled them so that she was flat on the bed and he was looking down on her. She gazed into those hot dark eyes without thought, content to drown in sensation.

'Tis a damnable shame you are obviously quite exhausted from you night's labours for there are any number of things I would like to do with your…..feathers, my dear.' He purred in her ear.

Penelo bit her lip on a giggle and opened her eyes wide as Balthier raised himself up to kneel beside her on the bed. Idly he traced the plunging neckline of her corset with one deft fingertip. He flicked a smouldering gaze her way before giving a theatrical sigh and sorrowful shake of his head.

'Prison leaves a man with a surfeit of imagination and no recourse for his urges,' he smiled just a little, belying the mournful tone of his voice, 'and alas it seems to be my accursed luck that now I am free from my fetters my dear lady love is too _tired_ to oblige me.'

Penelo sucked in her breath sharply, jolted fully awake. 'Lady love?'

Balthier's lips twitched with suppressed amusement, 'Rather quick to catch the operative words, aren't you my dear? I dare say you are looking a tad more spritely now too.' He leaned forward slowly, moving in close for a kiss, 'I wonder why, hmm?'

'Do you mean it?' Penelo asked him when he was so close her lips brushed his as she spoke. She placed a hand against his collarbone to stop him moving in that last breath. 'Am I really your lady love?'

He shook his head and she could have sworn he rolled his eyes, 'Tsk, you women are all the same. A man let's slip that blasted word and even the hardest hearted slattern is distracted from the task at hand. You women become ravenous beasts demanding more and more if a man makes the mistake of using _that_ word in your hearing.'

Despite the half-hearted resistance of her hand against him he leaned in to press his lips to hers. Penelo hesitated; she tingled where he touched her, but she did not part her lips to grant him access. She had to know.

'I am not a slattern.' She all but breathed into his mouth. She felt his smile against her lips.

'No, merely a ravenous beast,' He pulled away from the almost kiss before Penelo could react to that, 'Now will you let me seduce you or must we waste all night in futile conversation, hmm?'

Penelo frowned even though she shivered and grew hot inside all at once at the thought of what 'seduction' he might have planned. She had missed him horribly after all and it had been a year and she really wasn't all that tired……No! She would not be distracted even as she could feel the tickle of his fingers walking up the bare flesh of her right thigh.

She grabbed his hand and held it pinned between hers, 'I have waited a whole year for you, Balthier. I did everything you asked for! I even went to Larsa to make sure he wouldn't hunt you down after.'

She stared at him, trying to bore her earnest need into his understanding. 'I need to hear you say you love me, just one more time.'

'Hmm, is that so?' He looked down at her coolly as he knelt on the bed in her cluttered dressing room. She could not read the look in his eyes. 'No, I do not think that is what you need at all, my dear.'

'Balthier?'

She tried to grab for him when he easily twisted his hand free of her grip and shifted off the bed away from her.

He pressed a finger to his own lips, 'Shush, Penelo. I am not quite so callous that I cannot read what you truly need in your eyes, dear heart, and it is not more words from me.' He chuckled dryly, 'I dare say you have heard quite enough empty platitudes from me already.'

Penelo opened her mouth, though she did not know what she intended to say. Thankfully Balthier's next action, reaching out to curl a hand around each of her ankles and pull her legs off the bed so he could begin unfastening her shoes, saved her the effort of trying to think of something to say.

Her shoes came away and she could not resist a groan of pure relief. Balthier sucked in a sharp breath, 'Sweet gods, my girl, I have heard of suffering for one's art, but this seems a trifle obsessive.'

He squinted at her feet and immediately a soft healing glow suffused his fingers as he began to minister the bleeding blisters upon the soles of her feet. Penelo bit her lip and let her head drop back against the mattress as the tickle of Balthier's healing magick glided over her abused flesh. It was so hard to stay awake, so hard not to let herself be washed away in the comfort he offered.

'Balthier please…..'

'Close your eyes and sleep, Penelo.' He told her firmly, clasping her left leg so he could press a kiss to the freshly healed insole of her foot and then her ankle. The soft tickle of his sideburn made her shiver as he pressed a further kiss to her inner thigh before turning his attentions to her right foot.

'But…?'

'You do not need me to tell you I love you Penelo, because we both know I am a shameless liar. It would be a meaningless sentiment.'

He looked up at her from where he crouched on the floor at the foot of the bed once he had finished healing her wounded feet. His position forced Penelo to look down the line of her own body to meet those wonderful shadowed eyes of his. His hands glided in firm caress up her thighs and then hooked his fingers around her waist to pull her upright as he rose to his feet and climbed onto the bed.

'You need to _believe_ that I love you, darling, and there are no words I can ever utter that can convince you of that.'

Balthier pulled her into his arms and tangled his fingers into the sweaty hair at the back of her head, with his other hand he reached out once more to play with the feathers of her false plumage. Penelo tilted her head to meet the kiss she knew was coming.

As it happened she was not sure how she ended up lying back down on the bed once more, her head cradled upon her pillows and her body tucked against his, panting for breath and seeing stars, and she did not really care. She just didn't want to let this moment slip away. She looked up into those dark, dark eyes and for the first time she thought she could see a light within those depths.

Balthier reached out and brushed his fingertips over her eyelids, 'Sleep now sweetheart and you will have all the proof you need that I do indeed love you.'

Penelo bit her lip, eyes closed and his fingertips feather light against them. However she could not quite believe that if she allowed herself to sleep she would not wake to find him gone, or worse, that all this was nothing but a dream.

'Sleep.'

He whispered lips against her ear and the overwhelming sense of him darkness and velvet, leather and laughter, was too great an enchantment to resist. She spiralled away into slumber before she could stop herself; blissful and at peace if only for a moment.

Penelo slept long and deeply. She did not dream and she did not stir, caught as she was in the good, honest completeness of hard earned slumber. She did not wake for some considerable time as night rolled into morning and morning edged towards noontide.

When Penelo did finally awaken she opened her eyes to smooth leather and starched white cotton. She stirred to the beat of another's heart against her ear and the scratch of charcoal over paper as clever fingers sketched the mechanical bird in its cage with swift strokes. Brown eyes flicked down to her as she looked up into Balthier's familiar and much loved face and she felt sure that she could see the light in them now.

'Good morning sweetheart; pleasant dreams?'

Penelo smiled and snuggled deeper into his arms as something tremulous but pure grew brighter and stronger inside her. Balthier was here and he had stayed and she knew then that he had spoken true. He _did_ love her. She knew this finally because here and now in the light of day, far from the sweet seduction of the night, he had remained with her.

And for the first time she thought, she _believed_, that maybe, just maybe, he would stay here with her now forever more.

It was then that Penelo began to laugh, even as she almost convulsively squeezed her arms around him (forcing him to put aside his paper and charcoal lest they be damaged). Knocking the sky pirate flat against the bed in her enthusiasm Penelo showered kisses down upon his face even as she held him pinned.

Here he was and here he would stay: her heist, her prize, her Balthier.

_Finis_

* * *

_A/N: To everyone who has written to me either in reviews or PM's about this story and its predecessor thank you so much for the praise and the lovely, interesting things you had to say; you cannot imagine how much it means to receive such support and encouragement. I can only hope that anyone reading this story has enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it._

_Spikey44_


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